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POEMS 



BY 



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OSCAR WILDE. 



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BOSTON : • 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
1881. 



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University Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



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HELAS! 

To drift with every passion till my soul 

Is a stringed lute on which all wi?tds can play, 

Is it for this that I have given away 

Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control? — 

Methinks my life is a twice-ivritten scroll 

Scrawled over on some boyish holiday 

With idle songs for pipe and virelay 

Which do but mar the secret of the whole. 

Surely there was a time I might have trod 

The sujtlit heights, and from life's dissonance 

Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God . 

Is that time dead? lo I with a little rod 

I did but touch the honey of romance — 

And must I lose a souVs iftheritance ? 



THE POEMS. 



-♦- 



Eleutheria : — ^^^® 

Sonnet to Liberty 3 

Ave Imperatrix 4 

To Milton II 

Louis Napoleon 12 

Sonnet on the Massacre of the Christians in Bul- 
garia 13 

Quantum Mutata 14 

Libertatis Sacra Fames 15 

Theoretikos 16 

The Garden of Eros 17 

Rosa Mystica : — 

Requiescat 37 

Sonnet on approaching Italy ........ 39 

{ San Miniato 40 

Ave Maria plena Gratia 41 

Italia 42 

Sonnet written in Holy Week at Genoa .... 43 

Rome Unvisited 44 

Urbs Sacra .Sterna 48 



VI THE POEMS. 

Pa^e '; 

Sonnet on hearing the Dies Irae sung in the Sistine 

Chapel 49 

Easter Day * . 50 

E Tenebris 51 

Vita Nuova 52 

Madonna Mia 53 

The New Helen 54 

The Burden of Itys 62 

Impression du Matin 83 

Magdalen Walks 86 

Athanasia . 88 

Serenade 92 

Endymion 95 

La Bella Donna della mia Mente 98 

Chanson 100 

Charmides loi 

Impressions. I. Les Silhouettes 143 

II. La Fuite de la Lune . .. • • • • ^44 

The Grave of Keats 145 

Theocritus : a Villanelle 146 

In the Gold Room : a Harmony 148' 

j 

Ballade de Marguerite 150 

The Dole of the King's Daughter 153 

Amor Intellectualis 155 

Santa Decca 156 



THE POEMS. vii 

Page 

A Vision .......... ^ .... 157 

Impression du Voyage 158 

The Grave of Shelley 159 

ly the Arno 160 

Impressions du Theatre : — 

Fabien dei Franchi 165 

Phedre .166 

Portia 167 

Henrietta Maria 168 

Camma 169 

Panthea 171 

Impression: Le Reveillon . 185 

At Verona . 186 

Apologia* 187 

Quia Multum amavi 190 

Silentium Amoris 192 

Her Voice 193 

My Voice 196 

Taedium Vitae 197 

Humanitad 199 

rATKTniKPOS • EPiiS 227 



ELEUTHERIA. 



ELEUTHERIA. 



SONNET TO LIBERTY. 

Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes 
See nothing save their own unlovely woe, 
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know, 
But that the roar of thy Democracies, 
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, 
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea, — 

And give my rage a brother ! Liberty ! 

For this sake only do thy dissonant cries 
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings 
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades 
Rob nations of their rights inviolate 
And I remain unmoved — and yet, and yet, 
These Christs that die upon the barricades, 
God knows it I am with them, in some things. 



ELEUTHERIA. 



AVE IMPERATRIX. 

Set in this stormy Northern sea, 
Queen of these restless fields of tide, 

England ! what shall men say of thee, 
Before whose feet the worlds divide? 

The earth, a brittle globe of glass, 
Lies in the hollow of thy hand. 

And through its heart of crystal pass, 
Like shadows through a twilight land, 

The spears of crimson-suited war. 
The long white-crested waves of fight, 

And all the deadly fires which are 
The torches of the lords of Night. 

The yellow leopards, strained and lean. 
The treacherous Russian knows so well. 

With gaping blackened jaws are seen 

Leap through the hail of screaming shell. 



ELEUTHERIA. 

The Strong sea-lion of England's wars 
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, 

To' battle with the storm that mars 
The star of England's chivalry. 

The brazen-throated clarion blows 

Across the Pathan's reedy fen, 
And the high steeps of Indian snows 

Shake to the tread of armed men. 

And many an Afghan chief, who lies 
Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees. 

Clutches his sword in fierce surmise 
When on the mountain-side he sees 

The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes 

To tell how he hath heard afar 
The measured roll of Enghsh drums 

Beat at the gates of Kandahar. 

For southern wind and east wind meet 

Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, 

England with bare and bloody feet 
Climbs the steep road of wide empire. 



ELEUTHERTA. 

O lonely Himalayan height, 
Grey pillar of the Indian sky, 

Where saw'st thou last in clanging fight 
Our winged dogs of Victory ? 

The almond groves of Samarcand, 
Bokhara, where red lihes blow, 

And Oxus, by whose yellow sand 

The grave white-turbaned merchants go 

And on from thence to Ispahan, 
The gilded garden of the sun. 

Whence the long dusty caravan 
Brings cedar and vermilion ; 

And that dread city of Cabool 
Set at the mountain's scarped feet. 

Whose marble tanks are ever full 
With water for the noonday heat : 

Where through the narrow straight Bazaar 

A little maid Circassian 
Is led, a present from the Czar 

Unto some old and bearded khan, — 



ELEUTHERIA. 

Here have our wild war- eagles flown, 
And flapped wide wings in fiery fight ; 

But the sad dove, that sits alone 
In England — she hath no delight. 

In vain the laughing girl will lean 
To greet her love with love-ht eyes ; 

Down in some treacherous black ravine, 
Clutching his flag, the dead boy hes. 

And many a moon and sun will see 
The lingering wistful children wait 

To climb upon their father's knee ; 
And in each house made desolate 

Pale women who have lost their lord 
will kiss the relics of the slain — 

Some tarnished epaulette — some sword — 
Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. 

For not in quiet English fields 

Are these, our brothers, lain to rest. 

Where we might deck their broken shields 
With all the flowers the dead love best. 



8 ELEUTHERIA. 

For some are by the Delhi walls, 

And many in the Afghan land, 
And many where the Ganges falls 

Through seven mouths of shifting sand. 

And some in Russian waters lie, 
And others in the seas which are 

The portals to the East, or by 

The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. 

O wandering graves ! O restless sleep ! 

O silence of the sunless day ! 
O still ravine ! O stormy deep ! 

Give up your prey ! Give up your prey ! 

And thou whose wounds are never healed. 
Whose weary race is never won, 

O Cromwell's England ! must thou yield 
For every inch of ground a son ? 

Go ! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head. 
Change thy glad song to song of pain ; 

Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, 
And will not yield them back again. 



ELEUTHERIA. 

Wave and wild wind and foreign shore 
Possess the flower of English land — 

Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, 
Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. 

What profit now that we have bound 

« 

The whole round world with nets of gold, 
If hidden in our heart is found 
The care that groweth never old? 

What profit that our galleys ride. 
Pine-forest-like, on every main ? 

Ruin and wreck are at our side, 
Grim warders of the House of pain. 

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet ? 

Where is our English chivalry? 
Wild grasses are their burial-sheet. 

And sobbing waves their threnody. 

O loved ones lying far away. 

What word of love can dead lips send ! 
O wasted dust ! O senseless clay ! 

Is this the end ! is this the end ! 



10 ELEUTHERIA. 

Peace, peace ! we wrong the noble dead 
To vex their solemn slumber so ; 

Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, 
Up the steep road must England go, 

Yet when this fiery web is spun. 

Her watchmen shall descry from far 

The young Republic like a sun 
Rise from these crimson seas of war. 



ELEUTHERIA. 1 1 



TO MILTON. 

Milton ! I think thy spirit hath passed away 

From these white diffs, and high- embattled towers ; 
This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours 

Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey, 

And the age changed unto a mimic play 

Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours ; 
For all our pomp and pageantry and powers 

We are but fit to delve the common clay, 

Seeing this little isle on which we stand, 
This England, this sea-lion of the sea. 
By ignorant demagogues is held in fee. 

Who love her not : Dear God ! is this the land 
Which bare a triple empire in her hand 
When Cromwell spake the word Democracy ! 



12 ELEUTHERIA. 



LOUIS NAPOLEON. 

Eagle of Austerlitz ! where were thy wings 
When far away upon a barbarous strand, 
In fight unequal, by an obscure hand, 

Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings ! 

Poor boy ! thou wilt not flaunt thy cloak of red, 
Nor ride in state through Paris in the van 
Of thy returning legions, but instead 

Thy mother France, free and republican. 

Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place 
The better laurels of a soldier's crown, 
That not dishonoured should thy soul go down 

To tell the mighty Sire of thy race 

That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty, 
And found it sweeter than his honied bees, 
And that the giant wave Democracy 

Breaks on the shores where Kings lay crouched at ease. 



ELEUTHERIA. ' 1 3 



SONNET. 

ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN 
BULGARIA. 

Christ, dost thou live indeed ? or are thy bones 
Still straightened in their rock-hewn sepulchre? 
And was thy Rising only dreamed by Her 
Whose love of thee for all her sin atones ? 
For here the air is horrid with men's groans, 
The priests who call upon thy name are slain, 
Dost thou not hear the bitter wail of pain 
From those whose children lie upon the stones ? 
Come down, O Son of God ! incestuous gloom 
Curtains the land, and through the starless night 
Over thy Cross the Crescent moon I see ! 
If thou in very truth didst burst the tomb 
Come down, O Son of Man ! and show thy might. 
Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee ! 



14 ELEUTHERIA. 



QUANTUM MUTATA. 

There was a time in Europe long ago 
When no man died for freedom anywhere, 
But England's lion leaping from its lair 
Laid hands on the oppressor ! it was so 
While England could a great Republic show. 
~ Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care 

Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair 
The Pontiff in his painted portico 
Trembled before our stern ambassadors. 

How comes it then that from such high estate 
We have thus fallen, save that Luxury 
With barren merchandise piles up the gate 
Where nobler thoughts and deeds should enter by 
Else might we still be Milton's heritors. 



ELEUTHERIA. 1 5 



LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES. 

Albeit nurtured in democracy, 

And liking best that state republican 
Where every man is Kinglike and no man 

Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, 

Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, 
Better the rule of One, whom all obey, 
Than to let clamorous demagogues betray 

Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. 

Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane 
Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street 
For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign 

Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, 
Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, 
And Murder with his silent bloody feet. 



1 6 ELEUTHERIA. 



THEORETIKOS. 

This mighty empire hath but feet of clay : 
Of all its ancient chivalry and might 
Our little island is forsaken quite : 

Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay, 

And from its hills that voice hath passed away 
Which spake of Freedom : O come out of it, 
Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit 

For this vile traffic-house, where day by day 
Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart. 
And the rude people rage with ignorant cries 

Against an heritage of centuries. 

It mars my calm : wherefore in dreams of Art 
And loftiest culture I would stand apart, 

Neither for God, nor for his enemies. 



THE GARDEN OF EROS. 



It is full summer now, the heart of June, 

Not yet the sun-burnt reapers are a-stir 
Upon the upland meadow where too soon 

Rich autumn time, the season's usurer, 
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees, 
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift 
breeze. 

Too soon indeed ! yet here the daffodil, 

That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on 

To vex the rose with jealousy, and still 
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion, 

And like a strayed and wandering reveller 

Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June's mes- 
senger 



20 THE GARDEN OF EROS. 

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade, 

One pale narcissus loiters fearfully 
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid 

Of their own loveliness some violets lie 
That will not look the gold sun in the face 
For fear of too much splendour, — ah ! methinks it is a 
place 

Which should be trodden by Persephone 

When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis ! 

Or danced on by the lads of Arcady ! 
The hidden secret of eternal bliss 

Known to the Grecian here a man might find, 

Ah ! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be 
kind. 

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles 
Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine, 

Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze 
Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine. 

That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve. 

And lilac lady's-smock, — but let them bloom alone, and 
leave 



THE GARDEN OF EROS. 21 

Yon spired holly-hock red-crocketed 

To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee, 

Its little bellringer, go seek instead 
Some other pleasaunce ; the anemone 

That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl 

Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl 



Their painted wings beside it, — bid it pine 

In pale virginity ; the winter snow 
Will suit it better than those lips of thine 

Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go 
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone, 
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own. 



The trumpet- mouths of red convolvulus 
So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet 

Whiter than Juno's throat and odorous 
As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet 

Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar 

For any dappled fawn, — pluck these, and those fond 
flowers which are 



22 THE GARDEN OF EROS. 

Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon 

Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis, 
That morning star which does not dread the sun, 

And budding marjoram which but to kiss 
Would sweeten Cythersea's lips and make 
Adonis jealous, — these for thy head, — and for thy girdle 
take 

Yon curving spray of purple clematis 

Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King, 

And fox-gloves with their nodding chalices, 
But that one narciss which the startled Spring 

Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard 

In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer's 
bird, 

Ah ! leave it for a subtle memory 

Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun. 
When April laughed between her tears to see 

The early primrose with shy footsteps run 
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold. 
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with 
shimmering gold. 



THE GARDEN OF EROS. 2$ 

Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet 

As thou thyself, my soul's idolatry ! 
And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet 

Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry, 
For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride 
And vail its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies 
pied. 

And I will cut a reed by yonder spring 

And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan 

Wonder what young intruder dares to sing 
In these still haunts, where never foot of man 

Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy 

The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company. 

And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears 
Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan, 

And why the hapless nightingale forbears 
To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone 

When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast. 

And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening 
east. 



24 THE GARDEN OF EROS. 

And I will sing how sad Proserpina 

Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed, 
And lure the silver-breasted Helena 

Back from the lotus meadows of the dead, 
So shalt thou see that awful loveliness 
For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war's 
abyss ! 

And then I '11 pipe to thee that Grecian tale 

How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion, 
And hidden in a grey and misty veil 
. Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun 
Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase 
Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his em- 
brace. 

And if my flute can breathe sweet melody, 

We may behold Her face who long ago 
Dwelt among men by the ^gean sea, 

And whose sad house with pillaged portico 
And friezeless wall and columns toppled down 
Looms o'er the ruins of that fair and violet-cinctured 
town. 



THE GARDEN OF EROS. 2$ 

Spirit of Beauty ! tarry still a-while, 

They are not dead, thine ancient votaries, 

Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile 
Is better than a thousand victories, 

Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo 

Rise up in wrath against them ! tarry still, there are a 
few. 

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood 

And consecrate their being, I at least 
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food. 

And in thy temples found a goodher feast 
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all 
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical. 

Here not Cephissos, not IHss.os flows. 

The woods of white Colonos are not here, 

On our bleak hills the olive never blows. 
No simple priest conducts his lowing steer 

Up the steep marble way, nor through the town 

Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered 
gown. 



26 THE GARDEN OF EROS. 

Yet tarry ! for the boy who loved thee best, 

Whose very name should be a memory 
To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest 

Beneath the Roman walls, and melody 
Still mourns her sweetest lyre, none can play 
The lute of Adonais, with his lips Song passed away. 

Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left 

One silver voice to sing his threnody, 
But ah ! too soon of it we were bereft 

When on that riven night and stormy sea 
Panthea claimed her singer as her own. 
And slew the mouth that praised her ; since which time we 
walk alone. 

Save for that fiery heart, that morning star 

Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye 
Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war 

The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy 
Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring 
The great Republic ! him at least thy love hath taught to 
sing. 



THE GARDEN OF EROS. 2/ 

And he hath been with thee at Thessaly, 

And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot 
In passionless and fierce virginity 

Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute 
Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill, 
And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her 
still. 

And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine, 

And sung the Galilaean's requiem. 
That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine 

He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him 
Have found their last, most ardent worshipper, 
And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its con- 
queror. 

Spirit of Beauty ! tarry with us still. 

It is not quenched the torch of poesy. 
The star that shook above the Eastern hill 

Holds unassailed its argent armoury 
From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight — 
O tarry with us still ! for through the long and common 
night. 



28 THE GARDEN OF EROS. 

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer's child, 
Dear heritor of Spenser's tuneful reed, * 

With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled 
The weary soul of man in troublous need, 

And from the far and flowerless fields of ice ' 

Has brought fair flowers meet to make an earthly 
paradise. 

We know them all, Gudrun the strong men's bride, 

Aslaug and Olafson we know them all. 
How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died, 

And what enchantment held the king in thrall 
When, lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers 
That war against all passion, ah ! how oft through summer 
hours. 

Long listless summer hours when the noon 

Being enamoured of a damask rose 
Forgets to journey westward, till the moon 

The pale usurper of its tribute grows 
From a thin sickle to a silver shield 

And chides its loitering car — how oft, in some cool grassy 
field • 



THE GARDEN OF EROS. 29 

Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight, 
At Bagley, where the rusthng bluebells come 

Almost before the blackbird finds a mate 
And overstay the swallow, and the hum 

Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves, 

Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy 
weaves, 

And through their unreal woes and mimic pain 

Wept for myself, and so was p'urified. 
And in their simple mirth grew glad again ; 

For as I sailed upon that pictured tide 
The strength and splendour of the storm was mine 
Without the storm's red ruin, for the singer is divine. 

The little laugh of water falling down 

Is not so musical, the clammy gold 
Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town 

Has less of sweetness in it, and the old 
Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady 
Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher har- 
mony. 



30 THE GARDEN OF EROS. 

Spirit of Beauty tarry yet a-while ! 

Although the cheating merchants of the mart 
With iron roads profane our lovely isle. 

And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, 
Ay ! though the crowded factories beget 
The blind-worm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry 
yet! 

For One at least there is, — He bears his name 

From Dante and the seraph Gabriel, — 
Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame 

To light thine altar ; He too loves thee well. 
Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien's snare, 
And the white feet of angels coming down the golden 
stair, 

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him 

A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear, 
And Sorrow take a purple diadem, 

Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair 
Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be 
Even in anguish beautiful ; — such is the empery 



THE GARDEN OF EROS. 3 1 

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage 

This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, 
Being a better mirror of his age 

In all his pity, love, and weariness. 
Than those who can but copy common things, 
And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty question- 
ings. 

But they are few, and all romance has flown. 

And men can prophesy about the sun, 
And lecture on his arrows — how, alone, 

Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, 
How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, 
And that no more 'mid English reeds a Naiad shows her 
head. 

Methinks these new Actseons boast too soon 
That they have spied on beauty ; what if we 

Have analyzed the rainbow, robbed the moon 
Of her most ancient, chastest mystery. 

Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope 

Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a tele- 
scope ! 



2)2 THE GARDEN OF EROS. 

What profit if this scientific age 

Burst through our gates with all its retinue 
Of modern miracles ! Can it assuage 

One lover's breaking heart ? what can it do 
To make one life more beautiful, one day- 
More god-like in its period ? but now the Age of Clay 

Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth 

Hath borne again a noisy progeny 
Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth 

Hurls them against the august hierarchy 
Which sat upon Olympus, to the Dust 
They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they 
must 

Repair for judgment, let them, if they can, 
From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance, 

Create the new Ideal rule for man ! 
Methinks that was not my inheritance ; 

For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul 

Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme 
goal. 



THE GARDEN OF EROS. 33 

Lo ! while we spake the earth did turn away 
Her visage from the God, and Hecate's boat 

Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day 
Blew all its torches out : I did not note 

The waning hours, to young Endymions 

Time's palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns ! — 



Mark how the yellow iris wearily 

Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed 
By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly, 

Who, like a blue vein on a girl's white-wrist, - 
Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night, 
Which 'gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath 
the light. 



Come let us go, against the pallid shield 
Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam, 

The corn-crake nested in the unmown field 
Answers its mate, across the misty stream 

On fitful wing the startled curlews fly. 

And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh, 

3 



34 THE GARDEN OF EROS. 

Scatters the pearled dew from off the grass, 

In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun, 
Who soon in gilded panoply will pass 

Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion 
Hung in the burning east, see, the red rim 
O'ertops the expectant hills I it is the God ! for love of 
him 

Already the shrill lark is out of sight, 

Flooding with v/aves of song this silent dell, — 

Ah ! there is something more in that bird's flight 
Than could be tested in a crucible ! — 

But the air freshens, let us go, — why soon 

The woodmen will be here ; how we have lived this night 
of June ! 



ROSA MYSTICA. 



ROSA MYSTICA. 



REQUIESCAT. 

Tread lightly, she is near 

Under the snow, 
Speak gently, she can hear 

The daisies grow; 

All her bright golden hair 
Tarnished with rust, 

She that was young and fair 
Fallen to dust. 

Lily-like, white as snow, 

She hardly knew 
She was a woman, so 

Sweetly she grew. 



38 ROSA MYSTIC A. 

Coffin-board, heavy stone, 
Lie on her breast, 

I vex my heart alone 
She is at rest. 

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear 

Lyre or sonnet. 
All my life 's buried here, 

Heap earth upon it. 

Avignon. 



ROSA MYSTICA. 39 



SONNET ON APPROACHING ITALY*. 



I REACHED the Alps : the soul within me burned 

Italia, my Italia, at thy name : 

And when from out the mountain's heart I came 
And saw the land for which my life had yearned, 
I laughed as one who some great prize had earned : 

And musing on the story of thy fame 

I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame 
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned, 
The pine-trees waved as waves a woman's hair, 

And in the orchards every twining spray 

Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam : 
But when I knew that far away at Rome 

In evil bonds a second Peter lay, 

I wept to see the land so very fair. 

Turin. 



40 ROSA MYSTICA. 



SAN MINIATO. 

See, I have climbed the mountain side 
Up to this holy house of God, 
Where once that Angel-Painter trod 
Who saw the heavens opened wide, 

And throned upon the crescent moon 
The Virginal white Queen of Grace, — 
Mary ! could I but see thy face 
Death could not come at all too soon. 

O crowned by God with thorns and pain 
Mother of Christ ! O mystic wife ! 
My heart is weary of this life 
And over-sad to sing again. 

O crowned by God with love and flame ! 
O crowned by Christ the Holy One ! 
O listen ere the searching sun 
Show to the world my sin and shame. 



ROSA MYSTICA. 41 



AVE MARIA PLENA GRATIA. 

Was this His coming ! I had hoped to see 
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told 
Of some great God who in a rain of gold 

Broke open bars and fell on Danae : 

Or a dread vision as when Semele 

Sickening for love and unappeased desire 
Prayed to see God's clear body, and the fire 

Caught her white limbs and slew her utterly : 

With such glad dreams I sought this holy place, 
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand 
Before this supreme mystery of Love : 

A kneeling girl with passionless pale face, 
An angel with a lily in his hand, 
And over both with outstretched wings the Dove. 

Florence. 



42 ROSA MYSTICA. 



ITALIA. 

Italia ! thou art fallen, though with sheen 
Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride 
From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide ! 

Ay ! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen 

Because rich gold in every town is seen. 
And on thy sapphire lake in tossing pride 
Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride 

Beneath one flag of red and white and green. 

O Fair and Strong ! O Strong and Fair in vain ! 
Look southward where Rome's desecrated town 
Lies mourning for her God-anointed King ! 

Look heaven-ward ! shall God allow this thing ? 

Nay ! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down, 
And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain. 

Venice. 



ROSA MYSTICA. 



43 



SONNET 

WRITTEN IN HOLY WEEK AT GENOA. 

I WANDERED in Scoglietto's green retreat, 
The oranges on each o'erhanging spray 
Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day ; 

Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet 

Made snow of all the blossoms, at my feet 
Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay : 
And the curved waves that streaked the sapphire bay 

Laughed i' the sun, and Hfe seemed very sweet. 

Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear, 
'' Jesus the Son of Mary has been slain, 
O come and fill his sepulchre with flowers." 

Ah, God ! Ah, God ! those dear Hellenic hours 
Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain, 
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers, and the Spear. 



44 ROSA MYSTICA. 



ROME UNVISITED. 

I. 

The corn has turned from grey to red, 
Since first my spirit wandered forth 
From the drear cities of the north, 

And to Italia's mountains fled. 

Aiid here I set my face towards home, 
For all my pilgrimage is done, 
Although, methinks,,yon blood-red sun 

Marshals the way to Holy Rome. 

O' Blessed Lady, who dost hold 
Upon the seven hills thy reign ! 

Mother without blot or stain. 
Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold ! 

O Roma, Roma, at thy feet 

1 lay this barren gift of song ! 
For, ah ! the way is steep and long 

That leads unto thy sacred street. 



ROSA MYSTICA. 45 



II. 

And yet what joy it were for me 
To turn my feet unto the south, 
And journeying towards the Tiber mouth 

To kneel again at Fiesole ! 

And wandering through the tangled pines 
That break the gold of Arno's stream, 
To see the purple mist and gleam 

Of morning on the Apennines. 

By many a vineyard- hidden home, 
Orchard, and olive-garden grey. 
Till from the drear Campagna's way 

The seven hills bear up the dome ! 



46 ROSA MYSTICA. 



Ill, 

A pilgrim from the noTthern seas — 
What joy for me to seek alone 
The wondrous Temple, and the throne 

Of Him who holds the awful keys ! 

When, bright with purple and with gold, 
Come priest and holy Cardinal, 
And borne above the heads of all 

The gentle Shepherd of the Fold. 

O joy to see before I die 

The only God-anointed King, 
And hear the silver trumpets ring 

A triumph as He passes by ! 

Or at the altar of the shrine 
Holds high the mystic sacrifice, 
And shows a God to human eyes 

Beneath the veil of bread and wine. 



ROSA MYSTICA. 47 



IV. 

For lo, what changes time can bring ! - 
The cycles of revolving years 
May free my heart from all its fears, — 

And teach my lips a song to sing. 

Before yon field of trembling gold 
Is garnered into dusty sheaves, 
Or ere the autumn's scarlet leaves 

Flutter as birds adown the wold, 

I may have run the glorious race, 

And caught the torch while yet aflame, 
And called upon the holy name 

Of Him who now doth hide His face. 



48 ROSA MYSTICA. 



URBS SACRA ^ETERNA. 

Rome ! what a scroll of History thine has been 
In the first days thy sword repubhcan 
Ruled the whole world for many an age's span : 

Then of thy peoples thou wert crowned Queen, 

Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen ; 
And now upon thy walls the breezes fan 
(Ah, city cro^vned by God, discrowned by man !) 

The hated flag of red and white and green. 

When was thy glory ! when in search for power 
Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun, 
And all the nations trembled at thy rod? 

Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour. 
When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One, 
The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God. 



ROSA MYSTICA. 49 



SONNET. 

ON HEARING THE DIES IR^ SUNG IN THE 
SISTINE CHAPEL. 

Nay, Lord, not thus ! white lihes in the spring, 
Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove. 
Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love 

Than terrors of red flame and thundering. 

The empurpled vines dear memories of Thee bring : 
A bird at evening flying to its nest. 
Tells me of One who had no place of rest : - 

I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing. 

Come rather on some autumn afternoon. 

When red and brown are burnished on the leaves, 
And the fields echo to the gleaner's song,- 

Come when the splendid fulness of the moon 
Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves, 
And reap Thy harvest : we have waited long. 



50 ROSA MYSTICA. 



EASTER DAY. 

The silver trumpets rang across the Dome : 
The people knelt upon the ground with awe : 
And borne upon the necks of men I saw, 

Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome. 

Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam, 
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red, 
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head : 

In splendour and in light the Pope passed home. 

My heart stole back across wide wastes of years 
To One who wandered by a lonely sea. 
And sought in vain for any place of rest : 

" Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest, 
I, only I, must wander wearily, 
And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears." 



ROSA MYSTIGA. 51 



E TENEBRIS. 

Come down, O Christ, and help me ! reach thy hand, 
For I am drowning in a stormier sea 
Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee : 

The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, 

My heart is as some famine-murdered land, 
Whence all good things have perished utterly, 
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie 

If I this night before God's throne should stand. 

" He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase. 
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name 
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height." 

Nay, peace, I shall behold before the night, 

The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame. 
The wounded hands, the weary human face. 



52 ROSA MYSTICA. 



VITA NUOVA. 

I STOOD by the unvintageable sea 

Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray, 

The long red fires of the dying day 
Burned in the west ; the wind piped drearily ; 
And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee : 

" Alas ! " I cried, " my hfe is full of pain, 

And who can garner fruit or golden grain, 
From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly ! " 

My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw 

Nathless I threw them as my final cast 

Into the sea, and waited for the end. 
When lo ! a sudden glory ! and I saw 

The argent splendour of white limbs ascend, 

And in that joy forgot my tortured past. 



ROSA MYSTICA. S3 



MADONNA MIA. 

A Lily-girl, not made for this world's pain, 
With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears, 
And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears 

Like bluest water seen through mists of rain : 

Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain. 
Red underlip drawn in for fear of love, 
And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove, 

Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein. 

Yet, though my hps shall praise her without cease, 
Even to kiss her feet I am not bold, 
Being o'ershadowed by the wings of awe. 

Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice 
Beneath the flaming Lion's breast, and saw 
The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold. 



54 ROSA MYSTICA. 



THE NEW HELEN. 

Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy 
The sons of God fought in that great emprise ? 
Why dost thou walk our common earth again ? 

Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy, 
His purple galley, and his Tyrian men, 
And treacherous Aphrodite's mocking eyes ? 

For surely it was thou, who, like a star 
Hung in the silver silence of the night, 
Didst lure the Old World's chivalry and might 

Into the clamorous crimson waves of war ! 

Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon ? 
In amorous Sidon was thy temple built 

Over the hght and laughter of the sea ? 
Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt, 
Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry, 
All through the waste and wearied hours of noon ; 



ROSA MYSTICA. 55 

Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned, 
And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss 

Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned 
From Calp^ and the cliffs of Herakles ! 

No ! thou art Helen, and none other one ! 

It was for thee that young Sarpedon died, 

And Memnon's manhood was untimely spent ; 

It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried 
With Thetis' child that evil race to run, 

In the last year of thy beleaguerment ; 
Ay ! even now the glory of thy fame 

Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel, 

Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well 
Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name. 

Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land 
Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew. 

Where never mower rose to greet the day 
But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew, 
And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand 

Till summer's red had changed to withered gray ? 



56 ROSA MYSTICA. 

Didst thou lie there by some Lethsean stream 
Deep brooding on thine ancient memory, 

The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam 
From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry. 

Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill 
With one who is forgotten utterly, 

That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine ; 
Hidden away that never mightst thou see 

The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine 
To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel ; 
• Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening. 
But only Love's intolerable pain. 
Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain. 
Only the bitterness of child-bearing. 

The lotos-leaves which heal the wounds of Death 
Lie in thy hand ; O, be thou kind to me. 
While yet I know the summer of my days ; 
For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath 
To fill the silver trumpet with thy praise. 
So bowed am I before thy mystery ; 



ROSA MYSTICA. 57 

So bowed and broken on Love's terrible wheel, 
That I have lost all hope and heart to sing, 
Yet care I not what ruin time may bring 

If in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel. 

Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here, 

But, like that bird, the servant of the sun, 

Who flies before the northwind and the night, 
So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear, 
Back to the tower of thine old delight. 

And the red lips of young Euphorion ; 
Nor shall I ever see thy face again. 

But in this poisonous garden must I stay, 
Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain, 

Till all my loveless life shall pass away. 

O Helen ! Helen ! Helen ! yet awhile, 
Yet for a little while, O, tarry here, 

Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee ! 
For in the gladsome sunlight of thy smile 
Of heaven or hell I have no thought or fear, 
Seeing I know no other god but thee : 



58 ROSA MYSTICA. 

No other god save him, before whose feet 
In nets of gold the tired planets move, 
The incarnate spirit of spiritual love 

Who in thy body holds his joyous seat. 

Thou wert not bom as common women are ! 

But, girt with silver splendour of the foam. 
Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise ! 
And at thy coming some immortal star, 

Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies, 

And waked the shepherds on thine island-home. 
Thou shalt not die : no asps of Egypt creep 

Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air ; 

No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair. 
Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep. 

Lily of love, pure and inviolate ! 
Tower of ivory ! red rose of fire ! 

Thou hast come down our darkness to illume : 
For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate, 
Wearied with waiting for the World's Desire, 
Aimlessly wandered in the house of gloom, 



ROSA MYSTICA. 59 

Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne 
For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness, 

Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine, ■ ' 

And the white glory of thy loveliness. 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS, 



This English Thames is holier far than Rome, 
Those harebells Hke a sudden flush of sea 

Breaking across the woodland, with the foam 
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone 

To fleck their blue waves, r— God is likeHer there, 

Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks 
bear ! 

Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take 

Yon creamy lily for their pavilion 
Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake 

A lazy pike lies basking in the sun 
His eyes half-shut, — He is some mitred old 
Bishop in partibus I look at those gaudy scales all green 
and gold. 



64 THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

The wind the restless prisoner of the trees 

Does well for Palaestrina, one would say 
The mighty master's hands were on the keys 

Of the Maria organ, which they play 
When early on some sapphire Easter morn 
In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is 
borne 



I 



From his dark House out to the Balcony 

Above the bronze gates and the crowded square, 

Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy 
To toss their silver lances in the air, 

And stretching out weak hands to East and West 

In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations 
rest. 

Is not yon lingering orange afterglow 

That stays to vex the moon more fair than all 

Rome's lordhest pageants ! strange, a year ago 
I knelt before some crimson Cardinal 

Who bare the Host across the Esquiline, 

And now — those common poppies in the wheat seem 
twice as fine. 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 6$ 

The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous 
With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring 

Through this cool evening than the odorous 

Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing, 

When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine, 

And makes God's body from the common fruit of corn 
and vine. 

Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass 

Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird 

Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass 
I see that throbbing throat which once I heard 

On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady, 

Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets 
sea. 

Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves 

At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe, 
And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves 

Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe 
To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait 

Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the 
farmyard gate. 

5 




66 THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas, 

And sweet the wind that hfts the new-mown hay, 

And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees 
That round and round the linden blossoms play ; 

And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall. 

And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-bricl 
wall. 

And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring 

While the last violet loiters by the well, 
And sweet to hear the shepherd -Daphnis sing 

The song of Linus through a sunny dell 
Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold 
And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the 
wattled fold. 

And sweet with young Lycoris to recline 

In some Illyrian valley far away, 
Where canopied on herbs amaracine 

We too might waste the summer-tranced day 
Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry. 
While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the 
sea. 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 6/ 

But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot 

Of some long-hidden God should ever tread 

The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute 

Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head 

By the green water-flags, ah ! sweet indeed 

To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock 
to feed. 

' Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister, 

Though what thou sing'st be thine own requiem ! 
Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler 

Of thine own tragedies ! do not contemn 
These unfamiliar haunts, this EngHsh field. 
For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can 
yield, 

Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose, 

Which all day long in vales ^olian 
A lad might seek in vain for, overgrows 

Our hedges like a wanton courtezan 
Unthrifty of her beauty, lilies too 

Ilissus never mirrored star our streams, and cockles 
blue 



6S THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs 
For swallows going south; would never spread 

Their azure tents between the Attic vines ; 
Even that little weed of ragged red, 

Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady 

Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy 



Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames 
Which to awake were sweeter ravishment 

Than ever Syrinx wept for, diadems 

Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meant 

For Cythersea's brows are hidden here 

Unknown to Cytheraea, and by yonder pasturing steer 



There is a tiny yellow daffodil, 

The butterfly can see it from afar, 
Although one summer evening's dew could fill 

Its little cup twice over ere the star 
Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold 
And be no prodigal, each leaf is flecked with spotted 
gold 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 69 

As if Jove's gorgeous leman Dana^ 

Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss 

The trembling petals, or young Mercury 
Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis 

Had with one feather of his pinions 

Just brushed them ! — the slight stem which bears the 
burden of its suns 



Is hardly thicker than the gossamer, 

Or poor Arachne's silver tapestry, — 
Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre 

Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me 
It seems to bring diviner memories 
Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph- 
haunted seas, 

Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where 
On the clear river's marge Narcissus lies. 

The tangle of the forest in his hair. 

The silence of the woodland in his eyes, 

Wooing that drifting imagery which is 

No sooner kissed than broken, memories of Salmacis 



70 THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

Who is not boy or girl and yet is both, 

Fed by two fires and unsatisfied 
Through their excess^ each passion being loth 

For love's own sake to leave the other's side 
Yet killing love by staying, memories 
Of Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent moon 
lit trees, 

Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf 

At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crew 
Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf 

And called false Theseus back again nor knew 
That Dionysos on an amber pard 
Was close behind her, memories of what Maeonia's 
bard 

With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy, 
Queen Helen lying in the carven room, 

And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy 

Trimming with dainty hand his helmet's plume, 

And far away the moil, the shout, the groan. 

As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the 
stone ; 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS. *J1 

Of winged Perseus with his flawless sword 
. Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch, 
And all those tales imperishably stored 

In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich 
Than any gaudy galleon of Spain 
Bare from the Indies ever ! these at least bring back 
again, 

For well I know they are not dead at all, 

The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy. 
They are asleep, and when they hear thee call 

Will wake and think 't is very Thessaly, 
This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade 
The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed 
and played. 

If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird 
Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne 

Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard 
The horn of Atalanta faintly blown 

Across the Cumner hills, and wandering 

Through Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets* 
spring,— 



72 THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

Ah ! tiny sober- suited advocate 

That pleadest for the moon against the day ! 
If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate 

On that sweet questing, when Proserpina 
Forgot it was not Sicily and leant 
Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonder- 
ment, — 

Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood ! 

If ever thou didst soothe with melody 
One of that little clan, that brotherhood 

Which loved the morning- star of Tuscany 
More than the perfect sun of Raphael 
And is immortal, sing to me ! for I too love thee well. 

Sing on ! sing on ! let the dull world grow young, 

Let elemental things take form again. 
And the old shapes of Beauty walk among 

The simple garths and open crofts, as when 
The son of Leto bare the willow rod. 
And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed the boy- 
ish God. 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 73 

Sing on ! sing on ! and Bacchus will be here 
Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne, 

And over whimpering tigers shake the spear 
With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone, 

While at his side the wanton Bassarid 

Will throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain 
kid! 

Sing on ! and I will wear the leopard skin, 
And steal the mooned wings of Ashtaroth, 

Upon whose icy chariot we could win 
Cithseron in an hour e'er the froth 

Has overbrimmed the wine-vat or the Faun 

Ceased from the treading ! ay, before the flickering 
lamp of dawn 

Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest. 
And warned the bat to close its filmy vans. 

Some Maenad girl with vine-leaves on her breast 
Will filch their beechnuts from the sleeping Pans 

So softly that the little nested thrush 

Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and leap 
will rush 



74 THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

Down the green valley where the fallen dew 
Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store, 

Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew 

Trample the loosestrife down along the shore, 

And where their horned master sits in state 

Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker 
crate ! 

Sing on ! and soon with passion-wearied face 
Through the cool leaves Apollo's lad will come, 

The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase 
Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom, 

And ivory-hmbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride, 

After yon velvet-coated deer the virgin maid will ride. 

Sing on ! and I the dying boy v/ill see 

Stain with his purple blood the waxen bell 

That overweighs the jacinth, and to me 
The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell, 

And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes, 

And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon 
lies ! 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 75 

Cry out aloud on Itys ! memory 

That foster-brother of remorse and pain 

Drops poison in mine ear, — O to be free, 
To burn one's old ships ! and to launch again 

Into the white-plumed battle of the waves 

And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered 
caves ! 

O for Medea with her poppied spell ! 

O for the secret of the Colchian shrine ! 
O for one leaf of that pale asphodel 

Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine, 
And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she 
Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea, 

Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased 

From hly to lily on the level mead. 
Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste 

The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed. 
Ere the black steeds had harried her away 
Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick and sun- 
less day. 



7^ THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

O for one midnight and as paramour 

The Venus of the httle Melian farm ! 
O that some antique statue for one hour 

Might wake to passion, and that I could charm 
The Dawn at Florence from its dum.b despair 
Mix with those mighty hmbs and make that giant breast 
my lair ! 



Sing on ! sing on ! I would be drunk with life, 
Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth, 

I would forget the wearying wasted strife. 
The riven vale, the Gorgon eyes of Truth, 

The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer. 

The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air ! 

Sing on ! sing on ! O feathered Niobe, 

Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal 

From joy its sweetest music, not as we 
Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal 

Our too untented wounds, and do but keep 

Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed 
sleej^. 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS. "JJ 

Sing louder yet, why must I still behold 
The wan white face of that deserted Christ, 

Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold. 
Whose smitten lips my hps so oft have kissed, 

And now in mute and marble misery 

Sits in his lone dishonoured House and weeps, perchance 
for me. 

O memory cast down thy wreathed shell ! 

Break thy hoarse lute O sad Melpomene ! 
O sorrow sorrow keep thy cloistered cell 

Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly ! 
Cease, cease, sad bird, thou dost the forest wrong 
To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned 
song ! 

Cease, cease, or if 'tis anguish to be dumb 
Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air, 

Whose jocund carelessness doth more become 
This English woodland than thy keen despair, 

Ah ! cease and let the northwind bear thy lay 

Back to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy Daulian 
bay. 



78 THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 






A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred, 
Endymion would have passed across the mead 

Moonstruck with love, and this still Tliames had heard 
Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed 

To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid 

Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid. 



A moment more, the waking dove had cooed, 

The silver daughter of the silver sea 
With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed 

Her wanton from the- chase, and Dryope 
Had thrust aside the branches of her oak 
To see the lusty gold-haired lad rein in his snorting 
yoke. 

A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss 
Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoon 

Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis 

Had bared his barren beauty to the moon, 

And through the vale with sad voluptuous smile 

Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the Nile 



THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 79 

Down leaning from his black and clustering hair 
To shade those slumberous eyelids' caverned bliss, 

Or else on yonder grassy slope with bare 
High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis 

Had bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer 

From his green ambuscade with shrill halloo and pricking 
spear. 

Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still ! 

O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing ! 
O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill 

Come not with such desponded answering ! 
No more thou winged Marsyas complain, 
Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain ! 



It was a dream, the glade is tenantless, 

No soft Ionian laughter moves the air, 
The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness, 

And from the copse left desolate and bare 
Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry. 
Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling 
melody 



So THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

So sad, that one might think a human heart 

Brake in each separate note, a quahty 
Which music sometimes has, being the Art 

Which is most nigh to tears and memory, 
Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear? 
Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not 
here. 

Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade, 

No woven web of bloody heraldries. 
But mossy dells for roving comrades made. 

Warm valleys where the tired student lies 
With half-shut book, and many a winding walk 
Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk. 



The harmless rabbit gambols with its young 
Across the trampled towing-path, where late 

A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng 

Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight ; 

The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads. 

Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved 
sheds 



THE BURDEN CF ITYS. 8 1 

Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out 

Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock 

Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout 
Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock, 

And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill, 

And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the 
hill. 

The heron passes homeward to the mere, 

The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, 

Gold world by world the silent stars appear, 
And like a blossom blown before the breeze, 

A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky. 

Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody. 

She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed, 

She knows Endymion is not far away, 
'Tis I, 'tis I, whose soul is as the reed 

Which has no message of its own to play. 
So pipes another's bidding, it is I, 
Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery. 

6 



82 »} THE BURDEN OF ITYS. 

Ah ! the brown bird has ceased : one exquisite trill 
About the sombre woodland seems to cling, 

Dying in music, else the air is still. 

So still that one might hear the bat's small wing 

Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell 

Each tiny d^^drop dripping from the blue-bell's brim- 
ming cell! "* ^ . 

And far away across the lengthening wold, 
Across the willowy flats and thickets brown, 

Magdalen's tall tower tipped with tremulous gold 
Marks the long High Street of the little town. 

And warns me to return ; I must not wait. 

Hark ! 'tis the curfew booming from the bell at Christ 
Church gate. 



IMPRESSION DU MATIN. 



85 



IMPRESSION DU MATIN. 

The Thames nocturne of blue and gold 
Changed to a Harmony in grey : 
A barge with ochre-coloured hay 

Dropt from the wharf : and chill and cold 

The yellow fog came creeping down 
The bridges, till the houses' walls 
Seemed changed to shadows, and S. Paul's 

Loomed like a bubble o'er the town. 

Then suddenly arose the clang 

Of waking life ; the streets were stirred 
With country waggons : and a bird . 

Flew to the gUstening roofs and sang. 

But one pale woman all alone, 
The daylight kissing her wan hair. 
Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare. 

With lips of flame and heart of stone. 



S6 




MAGDALEN WALKS. 

The little white clouds are racing over the sky, 

And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of 

March, 
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch 

Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by. 

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning 
breeze. 
The odour of leaves, and of grass, and of newly up- 
turned earth. 
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad birth. 
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees. 

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of 
Spring, 
And the rosebud breaks into pink on the climbing 
briar. 



MAGDALEN WALKS. 8/ 

And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire 
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring. 

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of 
love 
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of 

green, 
And the gloom of the wych-elm's hollow is lit with the 

iris sheen 
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of 
a dove. 

See ! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there, 
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew. 
And flashing a-down the river, a flame of blue ! 

The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air. 



88 



ATHANASIA. 

To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught 
Of all the gi'eat things men have saved from Time, 

The withered body of a girl was brought 

Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime, 

And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid 

In the dim womb of some black pyramid. 

But when they had unloosed the linen band 

Which swathed the Egyptian's body, — lo ! was found 

Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand 
A little seed, which sown in English ground 

Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear. 

And spread rich odours through our springtide air. 

With such strange arts this flower did allure 

That all forgotten was the asphodel. 
And the brown bee, the lily's paramour, 

Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell, 



I 



ATHANASIA. 89 

For not a thing of earth it seemed to be, 
But stolen from some heavenly Arcady. 

In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white 
At its own beauty, hung across the stream, 

The purple dragon-fly had no delight 

With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam. 

Ah ! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss, * 

Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis. 

For love of it the passionate nightingale 
Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king. 

And the pale dove no longer cared to sail 

Through the wet woods at time of blossoming. 

But round this flower of Egypt sought to float, 

With silvered wing and amethystine throat. 

While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue 
A cooling wind crept from the land of snows, 

And the warm south with tender tears of dew 
Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos uprose 

Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky 

On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie. 




90 ATHANASIA. 

But when o'er wastes of lily-haunted field 

The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune, 

And broad and glittering like an argent shield 
High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon. 

Did no strange dream or evil memory make 

Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake ? 

Ah no ! to this bright flower a thousand years 
Seemed but the lingering of a summer's day. 

It never knew the tide of cankering fears 

Which turn a boy's gold hair to withered grey, 

The dread desire of death it never knew, 

Or how all folk that they were born must rue. 



For we to death with pipt and dancing go, 
Nor would we pass the ivory gate again. 

As some sad river wearied of its flow 

Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men. 

Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea ! 

And counts it gain to die so gloriously. 

We mar our lordly strength in barren strife 

With the world's legions led by clamorous care, 



ATHANASIA. 9 1 

It never feels decay but gathers life 

From the pure sunlight and the supreme air, 
We live beneath Time's wasting sovereignty, 
It is the child of all eternity. 



92 



SERENADE. 
(for music.) 

The western wind is blowing fair 

Across the dark ^gean sea, 
And at the secret marble stair 

My Tyrian galley waits for thee. 
Come down ! the purple sail is spread, 

The watchman sleeps within the town, 
O leave thy lily-flowered bed, 

O Lady mine come down, come down ! 

She will not come, I know her well. 

Of lover's vows she hath no care, 
And httle good a man can tell 

Of one so cruel and so fair. 
True love is but a woman's toy. 

They never know the lover's pain, 
And I who loved as loves a boy 

Must love in vain, must love in vain. 



SERENADE. 93 

O noble pilot tell me true 

Is that the sheen of golden hair ? 

Or is it but the tangled dew- 
That binds the passion-flowers there ? 

Good sailor come and tell me now 
Is that my Lady's lily hand? 

Or is it but the gleaming prow, 
Or is it but the silver sand ? 

No ! no ! 'tis not the tangled dew, 

'Tis not the silver-fretted sand, 
It is my own dear Lady true 

With golden hair and hly hand ! 
O noble pilot steer for Troy, 

Good sailor ply the labouring oar, 
This is the Queen of hfe and joy 

Whom we must bear from Grecian shore ! 
>» 

The waning sky grows faint and blue. 

It wants an hour still of day, 
Aboard ! aboard ! my gallant crew, 

O Lady mine away ! away ! 



94 SERENADE. 

O noble pilot steer for Troy, 

Good sailor ply the labouring oar, 

O loved as only loves a boy ! 
O loved for ever evermore ! 



95 



ENDYMION. 

(for music.) 

The apple trees are hung with gold, 

And birds are loud in Arcady, 
The sheep lie bleating in the fold, 
The wild goat runs across the wold, 
But yesterday his love he told, 

I know he will come back to me. 
O rising moon ! O Lady moon ! 

Be you my lover's sentinel. 

You cannot choose but know him well, 
For he is shod with purple shoon. 
You cannot choose but know my love. 

For he a shepherd's crook doth bear, 
And he is soft as any dove, 

And brown and curly is his hair. 

The turtle now has ceased to call 

Upon her crimson-footed groom. 
The grey wolf prowls about the stall. 



96 ENDYMION. 

The lily's singing seneschal 
Sleeps in the lily-bell, and all 

The violet hills are lost in gloom. 
O risen moon ! O holy moon ! 

Stand on the top of HeHce, 

And if my own true love you see, 
Ah ! if you see the purple shoon, 
The hazel crook, the lad's brown hair. 

The goat-skin wrapped about his arm. 
Tell him that I am waiting where 

The rushhght glimmers in the Farm. 



The falling dew is cold and chill, 

And no bird sings in Arcady, 
The little fauns have left the hill, 
Even the tired daffodil 
Has closed its gilded doors, and still 

My lover comes not back to me. 
False moon ! False moon ! O waning moon 

Where is my own true lover gone, 

Where are the lips vermilion. 
The shepherd's crook, the purple shoon? 



ENDYMION. 97 

Why spread that silver pavilion, 

Why wear that veil of drifting mist? 
Ah ! thou hast young Endymion, 

Thou hast the lips that should be kissed ! 



98 



LA BELLA DONNA DELLA MIA MENTE. 

My limbs are wasted with a flame, 
My feet are sore with travelling, 

For calling on my Lady's name 
My lips have now forgot to sing. 

O Linnet in the wild-rose brake 
Strain for my Love thy melody, 

O Lark sing louder for love's sake, 
My gentle Lady passeth by. 

She is too fair for any man 

To see or hold his heart's delight, 

Fairer than Queen or courtezan 
Or moon-Ht water in the night. 

Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves, 
(Green leaves upon her golden hair !) 

Green grasses through the yellow sheaves 
Of autumn corn are not more fair. 



LA BELLA DONNA BELLA MIA MENTE. 99 

Her little lips, more made to kiss 

Than to cry bitterly for pain, 
Are tremulous as brook-water is, 

Or roses after evening rain. 

Her neck is like white melilote 

Flushing for pleasure of the sun, 
The throbbing of the linnet's throat 

Is not so sweet to look upon. 

As a pomegranate, cut in twain, 

White-seeded, is her crimson mouth, 

Her cheeks are as the fading stain 

Where the peach reddens to the south. 

O twining hands ! O delicate 

White body made for love and pain ! 

O House of love ! O desolate 
Pale flower beaten by the rain ! 



100 



CHANSON. 

A RING of gold and a milk-white dove 

Are goodly gifts for thee, 
And a hempen rope for your own love 

To hang upon a tree. 

For you a House of Ivory 
^^,. (Roses are white in the rose-bower) ! 
A narrow bed for me to lie 

(White, O white, is the hemlock flower) ! 

Myrtle and jessamine for you 
(O the red rose is fair to see) ! 

For me the cypress and the rue 
(Fairest of all is rose-mary) ! 

For you three lovers of your hand 

(Green grass where a man lies dead) ! 

For me three paces on the sand 
(Plant lilies at my head) ! 



CHARMIDES. 



He was a Grecian lad, who coming home 

With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily 
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam 

Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously, 
And holding wave and wind in boy's despite 
Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy 
night 

Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear 
Like a thin thread of gold against the sky, 

And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear, 
And bade the pilot head her lustily 

Against the nor'west gale, and all day long 

Held on his way, and marked the rowers' time with meas- 
ured song, 



104 CHARMIDES. 

And when the faint Corinthian hills were red 

Dropped anchor in a little sandy bay, 
And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head, 

And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray, 
And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold 
Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled, 

And a rich robe stained with the fishes' juice 
Which of some swarthy trader he had bought 

Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse, 

And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought, 

And by the questioning merchants made his way 

Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the la- 
bouring day 

Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud, 
Clomb the high hill, and with swift silent feet 

Crept to the fane unnoticed by the crowd 
Of busy priests, and from some dark retreat 

Watched the young swains his frolic playmates bring 

The firstling of their httle flock, and the shy shepherd 
fling 



CHARMIDES. IO5 

The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang 
His studded crook against the temple wall 

To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang 

Of the base wolf from homestead and from stall ; 

And then the clear- voiced maidens 'gan to sing, 

And to the altar each man brought some goodly offering, 

A beechen cup brimming with milky foam, 
A fair cloth wrought with cunning imagery 

Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb 

Dripping with oozy gold which scarce the bee 

Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil 

Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce and white- 
tusked spoil 

Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid 

To please Athena, and the dappled hide 
Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade 

Had met the shaft ; and then the herald cried. 
And from the pillared precinct one by one 
Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they their simple 
vows had done. 



I06 CHARMIDES. 

And the old priest put out the waning fires 
Save that one lamp whose restless ruby glowed 

For ever in the cell, and the shrill lyres 

Came fainter on the wind, as down the road 

In joyous dance these country folk did pass, 

And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of 
polished brass. 

Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe, 
And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine, 

And the rose-petals falling from the wreath 

As the night breezes wandered through the shrine, 

And seemed to be in some entranced swoon 

Till through the open roof above the full and brimming 
moon 

Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor, 
When from his nook upleapt the venturous lad. 

And flinging wide the cedar-carven door 
Beheld an awful image saffron- clad 

And armed for battle ! the gaunt Grifiin glared 

From the huge helm, and the long lance of wreck and 
ruin flared 



CHARMIDES. 10/ 

Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled 
The Gorgon's head its leaden eyeballs rolled, 

And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield, 
And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold 

In passion impotent, while with blind gaze 

The bhnking owl between the feet hooted in shrill 
amaze. 

The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp 

Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast 
The net for tunnies, heard a brazen tramp 

Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast 
Divide the folded curtains of the night. 
And knelt upon the little poop, and prayed in holy 
fright. 

And guilty lovers in their venery 

Forgat a little while their stolen sweets. 
Deeming they heard dread Dian's bitter cry ; 

And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats 
Ran to their shields in haste precipitate. 
Or strained black-bearded throats across the dusky 
parapet. 



I08 CHARMIDES. 

For round the temple rolled the clang of arms, 
And the twelve Gods leapt up in marble fear, 

And the air quaked with dissonant alarums 
Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear, 

And on the frieze the prancing horses neighed, 

And the low tread of hurrying feet rang from the caval- 
cade. 

Ready for death with parted lips he stood, 

And well content at such a price to see 
That calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood. 

The marvel of that pitiless chastity, 
Ah ! well content indeed, for never wight 
Since Troy's young shepherd prince had seen so wonder- 
ful a sight. 

Ready for death he stood, but lo ! the air 
Grew silent, and the horses ceased to neigh. 

And off his brow he tossed the clustering hair. 
And from his limbs he threw the cloak away. 

For whom would not such love make desperate, 

And nigher came, and touched her throat, and with hands 
violate 



CHARMIDES. IO9 

Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown, 

And bared the breasts of polished ivory, 
Till from the waist the peplos falling down 

Left visible the secret mystery 
Which to no lover will Athena show, 
The grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy hills 
of snow. 

Those who have never known a lover's sin 

Let them not read my ditty, it will be 
To their dull ears so musicless and thin 

That they will have no joy of it, but ye 
To whose wan cheeks now creeps the hngering smile. 
Ye who have learned who Eros is, — O Hsten yet a-while. 

A little space he let his greedy eyes 

Rest on the burnished image, till mere sight 

Half swooned for surfeit of such luxuries, 
And then his lips in hungering dehght 

Fed on her lips, and round the towered neck 

He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion's will to 
check. 



no CHARMIDES. 

Never I ween did lover hold such tryst, 

For all night long he murmured honeyed word, 

And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed 
Her pale and argent body undisturbed, 

And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed 

His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast. 

It was as if Numidian javelins 

Pierced through and through his wild and whirling 
brain. 
And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins 

In exquisite pulsation, and the pain 
Was such sweet anguish that he never drew 
His lips from hers till overhead the lark of warning flew. 

They who have never seen the daylight peer 
Into a darkened room, and drawn the curtain, 

And with dull eyes and wearied from some dear 
And worshipped body risen, they for certain 

Will never know of what I try to sing. 

How long the last kiss was, how fond and late his linger- 
ing. 



CHARMIDES. Ill 

The moon was girdled with a crystal rim, 

The sign which shipmen say is ominous 
Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim. 

And the low lightening east was tremulous 
With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn, 
Ere from the silent sombre shrine this lover had with' 
drawn. 

Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast 

Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan, 

And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed. 
And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran 

Like a young fawn unto an ohve wood 

Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood. 

And sought a little stream, which well he knew. 

For oftentimes with boyish careless shout 
The green and crested grebe he would pursue. 

Or snare in v/oven net the silver trout, 
And down amid the startled reeds he lay 
Panting in breathless sweet affright, and waited for the 
day. 



112 CHARMIDES. 

On the green bank he lay, and let one hand 

Dip in the cool dark eddies listlessly, 
And soon the breath of morning came and fanned 

His hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly 
The tangled curls from off his forehead, while 
He on the running water gazed with strange and secret 
smile. 

And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak 
With his long crook undid the wattled cotes, 

And from the stack a thin blue wreath of smoke 
Curled through the air across the ripening oats. 

And on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed 

As through the crisp and rustling fern the heavy cattle 
strayed. 

And when the light-foot mower went afield 
Across the meadows laced with threaded dew, 

And the sheep bleated on the misty weald, 
And from its nest the waking corn-crake flew. 

Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream 

And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could seem. 



CHARMIDES. II3 

Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said, 

-' It is young Hylas, that false rmiaway 
Who with a Naiad now would make his bed 

Forgetting Herakles," but others, " Nay, 
It is Narcissus, his own paramour. 

Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can 
allure." 

And when they nearer came a third one cried, 

" It is young Dionysos who has hid 
His spear and fawnskin by the river side 

Weary of hunting with the Bassarid, 
And wise indeed were we away to fly 
They Hve not long who on the gods immortal come to 
spy." 

So turned they back, and feared to look behind. 
And told the timid swain how they had seen 

Amid the reeds some woodland God reclined. 
And no man dared to cross the open green. 

And on that day no olive-tree was slain. 

Nor rushes cut, but all deserted was the fair domain. 

8 



I T4 CHARMIDES. 

Save when the neat-herd's lad, his empty pail 
Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound 

Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail 
Hoping that he some comrade new had found, 

And gat no answer, and then half afraid 

Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent 
glade 

A little girl ran laughing from the farm 

Not thinking of love's secret mysteries. 
And when she saw the white and gleaming arm 

And all his manlihood, with longing eyes 
Whose passion mocked her sweet virginity 
Watched him a-while, and then stole back sadly and 
wearily. 

Far off he heard the city's hum and noise, 
And now and then the shriller laughter where 

The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys 
Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air. 

And now and then a httle tinkling bell 

\s the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well. 



CHARMIDES. 1 1 5 

Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat, 
The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree, 

In sleek and oily coat the water-rat 
Breasting the little ripples manfully 

Made for the wild-duck's nest, from bough to bough 

Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across 
the slough. 

On the faint wind floated the silky seeds, 

As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass. 

The ousel-cock splashed circles in the reeds 
And flecked with silver whorls the forest's glass, 

V/hich scarce had caught again its imagery 

Ere from its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragon- 
fly. 

But little care had he for any thing 

Though up and down the beech the squirrel played, 
And from the copse the linnet 'gan to sing 

To her brown mate her sweetest serenade, 
Ah ! little care indeed, for he had seen 
The breasts of Pallas and the naked wonder of the 
Queen. 



Il6 CHARMIDES. 

But when the herdsman called his straggling goats 

With whistling pipe across the rocky road, 
And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes 

Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to 
bode 
Of coming storm, and the belated crane 
Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops 
of rain 

Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose, 

And from the gloomy forest went his way 
Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close. 

And came at last unto a little quay. 
And called his mates a-board, and took his seat 
On the high poop, and pushed from land, and loosed the 
dripping sheet. 

And steered across the bay, and when nine suns 
Passed down the long and laddered way of gold. 

And nine pale moons had breathed their orisons 
To the chaste stars their confessors, or told 

Their dearest secret to the downy moth 

That will not fly at noonday, through the foam and surging 
froth 



CHARMIDES. 11/ 

Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes 
And lit upon the ship, whose timbers creaked 

As though the lading of three argosies 

Were in the hold, and flapped its wings, and shrieked. 

And darkness straightway stole across the deep. 

Sheathed was Orion's sword, dread Mars himself fled down 
the steep, 

And the moon hid behind a tawny mask 

Of drifting cloud, and from the ocean's marge 

Rose the red plume, the huge and horned casque, 
The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe ! 

And clad in bright and burnished panoply 

Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering 
sea ! 

To the dull sailors' sight her loosened locks 

Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet 

Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks. 
And marking how the rising waters beat 

Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried 

To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward 
side. 



Il8 CHARMIDES. 

But he, the over-bold adulterer, 

A dear profaner of great mysteries, 
An ardent amorous idolater. 

When he beheld those grand relentless eyes 
Laughed loud for joy, and crying out " I come " 
Leapt from the lofty poop into the chill and churning 
foam. 

Then fell from the high heaven one bright star, 

One dancer left the circling galaxy. 
And back to Athens on her clattering car 

In all the pride of venged divinity 
Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank. 
And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover 
sank. 

And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew 
With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen, 

And the old pilot bade the trembling crew 
Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen 

Close to the stern a dim and giant form. 

And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through 
the storm. 



CHARMIDES. 11^ 

And no man dared to speak of Charmides 

Deeming that he some evil thing had wrought, 

And when they reached the strait Symplegades 

They beached their galley on the shore, and sought 

The toll-gate of the city hastily, 

And in the market showed their brown and pictured 
pottery. 



120 CHARMIDES. 



II. 



But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare 
The boy's drowned body back to Grecian land, 

And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair 

And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand, 

Some brought sweet spices from far Araby, 

And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby. 



And when he neared his old Athenian home, 

A mighty billow rose up suddenly 
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam 

Lay diapered in some strange fantasy. 
And clasping him unto its glassy breast. 
Swept landward, like a white -maned steed upon a ven- 
turous quest ! 



CHARMIDES. 121 

Now where Colonos leans unto the sea 
There hes a long and level stretch of lawn, 

The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee 
For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun 

Is not afraid, for never through the day 

Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at 
play. 

But often from the thorny labyrinth 

And tangled branches of the circHng wood 

The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth 

Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood 

Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away. 

Nor dares to wind his 'horn, or — else at the first break 
of day 

The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball 

Along the reedy shore, and circumvent 
Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal 

For fear of bold Poseidon's ravishment, 
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes, 
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should 
rise. 



122 CHARMIDES. 

On this side and on that a rocky cave, 

Hung with the yellow-bell'd laburnum, stands, 

Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave 
Leaves its faint outhne etched upon the sands, 

As though it feared to be too soon forgot 

By the green rush, its playfellow*, — and yet, it is a spot 



So small, that the inconstant butterfly 

Could steal the hoarded honey from each flower 

Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy 
Its over-greedy love, — within an hour 

A sailor boy, were he but rude enow 

To land and .pluck a garland for his galley's painted 
prow, 



Would almost leave the little meadow bare, 
For it knows nothing of great pageantry, 

Only a few narcissi here and there 
Stand separate in sweet austerity. 

Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars, 

And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimetars. 



CHARMIDES. 1 23 

Hither the billow brought him, and was glad 
Of such dear servitude, and where the land 

Was virgin of all waters laid the lad 

Upon the golden margent of the strand, 

And like a lingering lover oft returned 

To kiss those pallid hmbs which once with intense lire 
burned, 

Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust, 
That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead. 

Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost 
Had withered up those liHes white and red 

Which, while the boy would through the forest range, 

Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter- 
change. 

And when at dawn the woodnymphs, hand-in- hand. 
Threaded the bosky dell, their satyi* spied 

The boy's pale body stretched upon the sand, 
And feared Poseidon's treachery, and cried. 

And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade. 

Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy am- 
buscade. 



124 CHARMIDES. 

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be 
So dread a thing to feel a sea-god's arms 

Crushing her breasts in amorous tyranny, 
And longed to listen to those subtle charms 

Insidious lovers weave when they would win 

Some fenced fortress, and stole back again, nor thought 
it sin 

To yield her treasure unto one so fair. 

And lay beside him, thirsty with love's drouth, 

Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair, 
And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth 

Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid 

Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond 
renegade, 

Returned to fresh assault, and all day long 
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy. 

And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song, 
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy 

Who would not with her maidenhood entwine, 

Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on 
Proserpine, 



CHARMIDES. 1 25 

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had clone, 
But said, " He will awake, I know him well, 

He will awake at evening when the sun 
Hangs his red shield on Corinth's citadel, 

This sleep is but a cruel treachery 

To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the 
sea 

Deeper than ever falls the fisher's line 

Already a huge Triton blows his horn, 
And weaves a garland from the crystalline 

And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn 
The emerald pillars of our bridal bed. 
For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral-crowned 
head. 

We two will sit upon a throne of pearl. 

And a blue wave will be our canopy. 
And at our feet the water-snakes will curl 

In all their amethystine panoply 
Of diamonded mail, and we will mark 
The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm- 
foundered bark. 



126 CHARMIDES. 

Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold 

Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep 

His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold, 
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep 

Cradled by murmming halcyons on the rocks 

Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his mon- 
strous flocks. 

And tremulous opal-hued anemones 

Will wave their purple fringes where we tread 

Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies 

Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread 

The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck, 

And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will 
deck." 

But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun 

With gaudy pennon flying passed away 
Into his brazen House, and one by one 

The little yellow stars began to stray 
Across the field of heaven, ah ! then indeed 
She feared his hps upon her hps would never care to 
feed, 



CHARMIDES. 12/ 

And cried, " Awake, already the pale moon 
Washes the trees with silver, and the wave 

Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune, 
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave 

The night-jar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass. 

And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through 
the dusky grass. 

Nay, though thou art a God, be not so coy, 

For in yon stream there is a little reed 
That often whispers how a lovely boy 

Lay with her once upon a grassy mead, 
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done 
Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the 
sun. 

Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still 

With great Apollo's kisses, and the fir 
Whose clustering sisters fringe the sea-ward hill 

Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher 
Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen 
The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar's silvery 
sheen. 



128 CHARMIDES. 

Even the jealous Naiads call me fair, 

And every morn a young and ruddy swain 

Wooes me with apples and with locks of hair, 
And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain 

By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love ; 

But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove 



With little crimson feet, which with its store 

Of seven spotted e^gs the cruel lad 
Had stolen from the lofty sycamore 

At day-break, when her amorous comrade had 
Flown off in search of berried juniper 
Which most they love ; the fretful wasp, that earliest 
vintager 



Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency 
So constant as this simple shepherd-boy 

For my poor lips, his joyous purity 

And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy 

A Dryad from her oath to Artemis ; 

For very beautiful. is he, his mouth was made to kiss, 



CHARMTDES. 1 29 

His argent forehead, like a rising moon 

Over the dusky hills of meeting brows, 
Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon 

Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodher spouse 
For Cytheraea, the first silky. down 

Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are 
strong and brown : 

And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds 

Of bleating sheep upon his meadows he, 
And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds 

Is in his homestead for the thievish fly 
To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead 
Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten 
reed. 

And yet I love him not, it was for thee 

I kept my love, I knew that thou would'st come 
To rid me of this pallid chastity ; 

Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam 
Of all the wide ^gean, brightest star 
Of ocean's azure heavens where the mirrored planets 
are ! 

9 



130 CHARMIDES. 

I knew that thou would'st come, for when at first 
The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of Spring 

Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst 
To myriad multitudinous blossoming 

Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons 

That did not dread the dawn, and first the tlirushes' rap- 
turous tunes 

Startled the squirrel from its granary, 

And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane, 

Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy 
Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein 

Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood, 

And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem's 
maidenhood. 

The trooping fawns at evening came and laid 
Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs 

And on my topmost branch the blackbird made 
A little nest of grasses for his spouse. 

And now and then a twittering wren would light 

On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such 
delight. 



CHARMIDES. I31 

I v/as the Attic shepherd's trysting place, 

Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay, 
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase 

The timorous girl, till tired out with play 
She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair, 
And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such * 
delightful snare. 

Then come away unto my ambuscade 

Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy 

For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade 
Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify 

The dearest rites of love, there in the cool 

And green recesses of its farthest depth there is a pool, 

The ouzel's haunt, the wild bee's pasturage. 

For round its rim great creamy lilies float 
Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage. 

Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat 
Steered by a dragon-fly, — be not afraid 
To leave this wan and wave- kissed shore, surely the place 
were made 



132 CHARMIDES. 

For lovers such as we, the Cyprian Queen, 

One arm around her boyish paramour, 
Strays often there at eve, and I have seen 

The moon strip off her misty vestiture 
For young Endymion's eyes, be not afraid, 
The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade. 



Nay if thou wil'st, back to the beating brine, 

Back to the boisterous billow let us go. 
And walk all day beneath the hyaline 

Huge vault of Neptune's watery portico, 
And watch the purple monsters of the deep 
Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias 
leap. 



For if my mistress find me lying here 

She will not ruth or gentle pity show. 
But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere 

Relentless fingers string the cornel bow, 
And draw the feathered notch against her breast, 
And loose the arched cord, ay, even now upon the quest 



CHARMIDES. 1 33 

I hear her hurrying feet, — awake, awake, 
Thou laggard in love's battle ! once at least 

Let me drink deep of passion's wine, and slake 
My parched being with the nectarous feast 

Which even Gods affect ! O come Love come. 

Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure 
home." 

Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees 
Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air 

Grew conscious of a God, and the grey seas 
Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare 

Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed. 

And like a flame a barbed reed flew whizzing down the 
glade. 

And where the little flowers of her breast 

Just brake into their milky blossoming. 
This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest, 

Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering. 
And ploughed a bloody furrow with its dart. 
Arid dug a long red road, and cleft with winged death 
her heart. 



134 CHARMIDES. 

Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry- 
On the boy's body fell the Dryad maid, 

Sobbing for incomplete virginity, 

And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead, 

And all the pain of things unsatisfied. 

And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her 
throbbing side. 

Ah ! pitiful it was to hear her moan, 

And very pitiful to see her die 
Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known 

The joy of passion, that dread mystery 
Which not to know is not to live at all. 
And yet to know is to be held in death's most deadly 
thrall. 

But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere, 
Who with Adonis all night long had lain 

Within some shepherd's hut in Arcady, 
On team of silver doves and gilded wane 

Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar 

From mortal ken between the mountains and the morn- 
ing star, 



CHARMIDES. 1 35 

And when low down she spied the hapless pair, 
And heard the Oread's faint despairing cry, 

Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air 
As though it were a viol, hastily 

She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume. 

And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw 
their dolorous doom. 

For as a gardener turning back his head 
To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows 

With careless scythe too near soine flower bed, 
And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose. 

And with the flower's loosened loveliness 

Strews the brown mould, or as some shepherd lad in 
wantonness 

Driving his little flock along the mead 

Treads down two daffodils which side by side 

Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede 
And made the gaudy moth forget its pride. 

Treads down their brimming golden chalices 

Under light feet which were not made for such rude 
ravages. 



136 CHARMIDES. 

Or as a schoolboy tired of his book 

Flings himself down upon the reedy grass 

And plucks two water-lilies from the brook, 
And for a time forgets the hour glass, 

Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way, 

And lets the hot sun kill them, even so these lovers 
lay. 

And Venus cried, ^' It is dread Artemis 

Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty, 

Or else that mightier may whose care it is 
To guard her strong and stainless majesty 

Ui3on the hill Athenian, — alas ! 

That they who loved so well unloved into Death's house 
should pass. 

So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl 

In the great golden waggon tenderly, 
Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl 

Just threaded with a blue vein's tapestry 
Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast 
Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest. 



CHARMIDES. 1 37 

And then each pigeon spread its milky van, 
The bright car soared into the dawning sky, 

And like a cloud the aerial caravan 
Passed over the ^gean silently, 

Till the faint air was troubled with the song 

From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all 
night long. 

But when the doves had reached their wonted goal 
Where the wide stair of orbed marble dips 

Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul 
Just shook the trembling petals of her lips 

And passed into the void, and Venus knew 

That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue, 

And bade her servants carve a cedar chest 

With all the wonder of this history, 
Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest 

Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky 
On the low hills of Paphos, and the faun 
Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till 
dawn. 



138 CHARMIDES. 

Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere 

The morning bee had stung the daffodil 
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair 

The waking stag had leapt across the rill 
And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept 
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies 
slept. 

And when day brake, within that silver shrine 

Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous, 
Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine 

That she whose beauty made Death amorous 
Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord, 
And let Desire pass across dread Charon's icy ford. 



CHARMIDES. 139 



III. 

In melancholy moonless Acheron, 

Far from the goodly earth and joyous day, 

Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun 
Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May 

Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor, 

Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mstje no 
more, 

There by a dim and dark Lethasan well 

Young Charmides was lying, wearily 
He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel, 

xA.nd with its little rifled treasury 
Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream, 
And watched the white stars founder, and the land was 
like a dream, 



140 CHARMIDES. 

When as he gazed into the watery glass 

And through his brown hair's curly tangles scanned 

His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass 
Across the mirror, and a little hand 

Stole" into his, and warm lips timidly 

Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth 
into a sigh. 

Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw, 

And ever nigher still their faces came. 
And nigher ever did their young mouths draw 

Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame, 
And longing arms around her neck he cast, 
And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot 
and fast, 

And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss. 

And all her maidenhood was his to slay. 
And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss 

Their passion waxed and waned, — O why essay 
To pipe again of love too venturous reed ! 
Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless 
mead. 



CHARMIDES. I4I 

Too venturous poesy O why essay 

To pipe again of passion ! fold thy wings 

'O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay 

Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings, 

Till thoa hast found the old Castalian rill, 

Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's 
golden quill ! 

Enough, enough that he whose life had been 

A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame, 
Could in the loveless land of Hades glean 

One scorching hai*vest from those fields of flame 
Where passion walks with naked unshod feet 
And is not wounded, — ah ! enough that once their lips 
could meet 

In that wild throb when all existences 

Seem narrowed to one single ecstasy • 

Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress 

Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone 
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne 
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone. 



143 



IMPRESSIONS. 

I. 

LES SILHOUETTES. 

The sea is flecked with bars of grey 
The dull dead wind is out of tune, 
And like a withered leaf the moon 
Is blown across the stormy bay. 

Etched clear upon the pallid sand 
The black boat hes : a sailor boy 
Clambers aboard in careless joy 
With laughing face and gleaming hand. 

And overhead the curlews cry, 
Where through the dusky upland grass 
The young brown-throated reapers pass, 
Like silhouettes against the sky. 



144 IMPRESSIONS. 



II. 

LA FUITE DE LA LUNE. 

To outer senses there is peace, 
A dreamy peace on either hand, 
Deep silence in the shadowy land, 
Deep silence where the shadows cease. 

Save for a cry that echoes shrill 
From some lone bird disconsolate | 
A corncrake calling to its mate ; 
The answer from the misty hill. 

And suddenly the moon withdraws 
Her sickle from the lightening skies. 
And to her sombre cavern flies, 
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze. 



HS 



THE GRAVE OF KEATS. 

Rid of the world's injustice, and liis pain, 
He rests at last beneath God's veil of blue : 
Taken from life when life and love were new 

The youngest of the martyrs here is lain, 

Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain. 

No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew. 
But gentle violets weeping with the dev/ 

Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain. 

O proudest heart that broke for misery ! 
O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene ! 
O poet-painter of our English Land ! 

Thy name was writ in water it shall stand : 

And tears like mine will keep thy memory green, 
.As Isabella did her Basil-tree. 



Rome. 



10 



J 46 



THEOCRITUS. 
A VILLANELLE. 

O Singer of Persephone ! 

In the dim meadows desolate 
Dost thou remember Sicily? 

Still through the ivy flits the bee 
Where Amaryllis Ues in state ; 
O Singer of Persephone ! 

Simaetha calls on Hecate 

And hears the wild dogs at the gate ; 
Dost thou remember Sicily? 

Still by the light and laughing sea 

Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate : 
O Singer of Persephone ! 



THEOCRITUS. 

And still in boyish rivalry 

■ Young Daphnis challenges his mate 
Dost thou remember Sicily ? 

Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee, 

For thee the jocund shepherds wait, 
O Singer of Persephone ! 
Dost thou remember Sicily ? 



147 



148 



IN THE GOLD ROOM. 
A HARMONY. 

Her ivory hands on the ivory keys 

Strayed in a fitful fantasy, 
Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees 

Rustle their pale leaves hstlessly, 
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea 
When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze. 

Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold 
Like the dehcate gossamer tangles spun 

On the burnished disk of the marigold. 
Or the sun-flower turning to meet the sun 
When the gloom of the jealous night is done, 

And the spear of the Hly is aureoled. 



IN THE GOLD ROOM. I49 

And her sweet red lips on these Hps of mine 
Burned Hke the ruby fire set 

In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine, 
Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate, 
Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet 

With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine. 



ISO 



BALLADE DE MARGUERITE. 

(NORMANDE.) 

I AM weary of lying within the chase 

When the knights are meeting in market-place. 

Nay, go not thou to the red- roofed town 

Lest the hooves of the war-horse tread thee down. 

But I would not go where the Squires ride, 
I would only walk by my Lady's side. 

Alack ! and alack ! thou art over bold, * 
A Forester's son may not eat off gold. 

Will she love me the less that my Father is seen, 
Each Martinmas day in a doublet green ? 

Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie. 
Spindle and loom are not meet for thee. 



BALLADE DE MARGUERITE. 151 

Ah, if she is working the arras bright 

I might ravel the threads by the fire-hght. 

Perchance she is hunting of the deer. 
How could you follow o'er hill and meer? 

Ah, if she is riding with the court, 

I might run beside her and wind the morte. 

Perchance she is kneeling in S. Denys, 

(On her soul may our Lady have gi'amercy !) 

Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle, 

I might swing the censer and ring the bell. 

is 

Come in my son, for you look sae pale, 
The father shall fill thee a stoup of ale. 

But who are these knights in bright array? 
Is it a pageant the rich folks play? 

'Tis the King of England from over sea. 
Who has come unto visit our fair countrie. 

But why does the curfew toll sae low 
And why do the mourners walk a-row? 



152 BALLADE DE MARGUERITE. 

O 'tis Hugh of Amiens my sister's son 
Who is lying stark, for his day is done. 

Nay, nay, for I see white liUes clear, 

It is no strong man who lies on the bier. 

'tis old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall, 

1 knew she would die at the autumn fall. 

Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair. 
Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair. 

O 'tis none of our kith and none of our kin, 
(Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin !) 

But I hear the boy's voice chaunting sweet, 
" Elle est morte, la Marguerite." 

Come in my son and lie on the bed. 
And let the dead folk bury their dead. 

O mother, you know I loved her true : 
O mother, hath one grave room for two ? 



553 



THE DOLE OF THE KING'S DAUGHTER. 

(BRETON.) 

Seven stars in the still water, 

And seven in the sky ; 
Seven sins on the King's daughter, 

Deep in her soul to lie. 

"Red roses are at her feet, 

(Roses are red in her red-gold hair) 
And O where her bosom and girdle meet 

Red roses are hidden there. 

Fair is the knight who heth slain 

Amid the rush and reed, 
See the lean fishes that are fain 

Upon dead men to feed. 



154 THE DOLE OF THE KING'S DAUGHTER. 

Sweet is the page that lieth there, 

(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,) 
See the black ravens in the air, 

Black, O black as the night are they. 

What do they there so stark and dead? 

(There is blood upon her hand) 
Why are the lilies flecked with red ? 

(There is blood on the river sand.) 

There are two that ride from the south and east, 
And two from the north and west, 

For the black raven a goodly feast, 
For the King's daughter rest. 

There is one man who loves her true, 
(Red, O red, is the stain of gore !) 

He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew, 
(One grave will do for four.) 

No moon in the still heaven. 

In the black water none. 
The sins on her soul are seven, 

The sin upon his is one. 



155 



AMOR INTELLECTUALIS. 

Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly 

And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown 
From antique reeds to common folk unknown : 

And often launched our bark upon that sea 

Which the nine Muses hold in empery, 

And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam, 
Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home 

Till we had freighted well our argosy. 

Of which despoiled treasures these remain, 
Sordello's passion, and the honied line 

Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine 

Driving his pampered jades, and more than these, 

The seven-fold vision of the Florentine, 

And grave-browed Milton's solemn harmonies. 



156 



SANTA DECCA. 

The Gods are dead : no longer do we bring 
To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves ! 
Demeter's child no more hath tithe of sheaves, 

And in the noon the careless shepherds sing, 

For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning 
By secret glade and devious haunt is o'er : 
Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more ; 

Great Pan is dead, and Mary's Son is King. 

And yet — perchance in this sea-tranced isle, 
Chewing the bitter fruit of memory, 
Some God lies hidden in the asphodel. 

Ah Love ! if such there be then it were well 
For us to fly his anger : nay, but see 
The leaves are stirring : let us watch a-while. 



157 



A VISION. 

Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone 
With no green weight of laurels round his head, 
But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, 

And wearied with man's never-ceasing moan 

For sins no bleating victim can atone, 

And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. 
Girt was he in a garment black and red, 

And at his feet I marked a broken stone 
Which sent up lihes, dove-like, to his knees. 
Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame 

I cried to Beatrice', "Who are these? " 

And she made answer, knowing well each name, 
"^schylos first, the second Sophokles, 
And last (wide stream of tears !) Euripides." 



158 



IMPRESSION DU VOYAGE. 

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky- 
Burned hke a heated opal through the air, 
We hoisted sail ; the wind was blowing fair 

For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. 

From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye 
Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, 
Ithaca's cliff, Lycaon's snowy peak, 

And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. 

The flapping of the sail against the mast, 
The ripple of the water on the side. 
The ripple of girls' laughter at the stern. 

The only sounds : — when 'gan the West to burn. 
And a red sun upon the seas to ride, 
I stood upon the soil of Greece at last ! 



159 



THE GRAVE OF SHELLEY. 

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed 

Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone ; 

Here doth the little night-owl make her throne, 
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head. 
And, where the chahced poppies flame to red, 

In the still chamber of yon pyramid 

Surely some Old- World Sphinx lurks darkly hid. 
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead. 

Ah ! sweet indeed to rest within the womb 

Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep. 
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb 

In the blue cavern of an echoing deep, 
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom 

Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep. 

Rome. 



i6o 



BY THE ARNO. 

The oleander on the wall 
Grows crimson in the dawning light, 
Though the grey shadows of the night 
Lie yet on Florence like a pall. 

The dew is bright upon the hill, 
And bright the blossoms overhead, 
But ah ! the grasshoppers have fled. 
The little Attic song is still. 

Only the leaves are gently stirred 
By the soft breathing of the gale. 
And in the almond-scented vale 
The lonely nightingale is heard. 



The day will make thee silent soon, 
O nightingale sing on for love ! 
While yet upon the shadowy grove 
Splinter the arrows of the moon. 



BY THE ARNO. l6l 

Before across the silent lawn 
In sea-green mist the morning steals, 
And to love's frightened eyes reveals 
The long white fingers of the dawn 

Fast climbing up the eastern sky- 
To grasp and slay the shuddering night, 
All careless of my heart's delight, 
Or if the nightingale should die. 



II 



IMPRESSIONS DU THEATRE. 



FABIEN DEI FRANCHI. 

The silent room, the heavy creeping shade, 
The dead that travel fast, the opening door, 
The murdered brother rising through the floor, 

The ghost's white fingers on thy shoulders laid, 

And then the lonely duel in the glade. 

The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore, 
Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o'er, •^- 

These things are well enough, — but thou wert made 
For more august creation ! frenzied Lear 
Should at thy bidding wander on the heath 
With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo 

For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear 
Pluck Richard's recreant dagger from its sheath — 
Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare's lips to blow ! 



1 66 IMPRESSIONS DU THEATRE. 



PHEDRE. 

How vain and dull this common world must seem 
To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked 
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked 

Through the cool olives of the Academe : 

Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream 
For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played 
With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade 

Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. 

Ah ! surely once some urn of Attic clay 

Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again 
Back to this common world so dull and vain, 

For thou wert weary of the sunless day. 
The heavy fields of scentless asphodel. 
The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. 



IMPRESSIONS DU Tnf:ATRE. 167 



PORTIA. 

I MARVEL not Bassanio was so bold 
To peril all he had upon the lead, 
Or that proud Aragon bent low his head, 

Or that Morocco's fiery heart grew cold : 

For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold 
Which is more golden than the golden sun. 
No woman Veronese looked upon 

Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. 

Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield 
The sober-suited lawyer's gown you donned 

And would not let the laws of Venice yield 
Antonio's heart to that accursed Jew — 
O Portia ! take my heart : it is thy due : 

I think I will not quarrel with the Bond. 



l68 IMPRESSIONS DU THEATRE. 



1 



QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA. 



In the lone tent, waiting for victory, 

She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain, 

Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain : 
The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky. 
War's ruin, and the wreck of chivalry, 

To her proud soul no common fear can bring : 

Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King, 
Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy. 
O Hair of Gold ! O Crimson Lips ! O Face . 

Made for the luring and the love of man ! 

With thee I do forget the toil and stress. 
The loveless road that knows no resting place. 

Time's straitened pulse, the soul's dread weariness, 

My freedom and my life republican ! 



IMPRESSIONS DU THEATRE. 1 69 



CAMMA. 

As one who poring on a Grecian urn 

Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made, 
God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid, 

And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn 

And face the obvious day, must I not yearn 
For many a secret moon of indolent bliss. 
When in the midmost shrine of Artemis 

I see thee standing, antique-hmbed, and stern? 

And yet — methinks I'd rather see thee play 
That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery 

Made Emperors drunken, — come, great Egypt, shake 
Our stage with all thy mimic pageants ! Nay, 
I am grown sick of unreal passions, make 

The world thine Actium, me thine Antony ! 



PANTHEA. 



Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire, 

From passionate pain to deadlier delight, — 

I am too young to live without desire, 
Too young art thou to waste this summer night 

Asking those idle questions which of old 

Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told. 

For, sweet, to feel is better than to know, 

And wisdom is a childless heritage, 
One pulse of passion — youth's first fiery glow, — 

Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage : 
Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy. 
Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love, and eyes to 
see ! 



^74 PANTHEA. 

Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale 

Like water bubbling from a silver jar, 
So soft she sings the envious moon is pale, 

That high in heaven she is hung so far 
She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune, — 
Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late and 
labouring moon. 

White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream, 
The fallen snow of petals where the breeze 

Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam 
Of boyish limbs in water, — are not these 

Enough for thee, dost thou desire more? 

Alas ! the Gods will give nought else from their eternal 



store. 



For our high Gods have sick and wearied grown 
Of all our endless sins, our vain endeavour 

For wasted days of youth to make atone 

By pain or prayer or priest, and never, never, 

Hearken they now to either good or ill. 

But send their rain upon the just and the unjust at 



will. 




PANTHEA. 175 

They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease. 

Strewing with leaves of rose their scented wine. 

They sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking trees 
Where asphodel and yellow lotus twine. 

Mourning the old glad days before they knew 

What evil things the heart of man could dream, and 
dreaming do. 

And far beneath the brazen floor they see 
Like swarming flies the crowd of little men. 

The bustle of small lives, then wearily 
Back to their lotus-haunts they turn again 

Kissing each other's mouths, and mix more deep 

The poppy-seeded draught which brings soft purple-lidded 
sleep. 

There all day long the golden-vestured sun. 

Their torch-bearer, stands with his torch a-blaze, 

And when the gaudy web of noon is spun 

By its twelve maidens through the crimson haze 

Fresh from Endymion's arms comes forth the moon. 

And the immortal Gods in toils of mortal passions swoon. 



^7^ PANTHEA.. 

There walks Queen Juno through some dewy mead 
Her grand white feet flecked with the saffron dust 

Of wind-stirred lilies, while young Ganymede 
Leaps in the hot and amber-foaming must, 

His curls all tossed, as when the eagle bare 

The frightened boy from Ida through the blue Ionian 
air. 

There in the green heart of some garden close 
Queen Venus with the shepherd at ker side, 

Her warm soft body like the briar rose 
Which would be white yet blushes at its pride. 

Laughs low for love, till jealous Salmacis 

Peers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for pain of 
lonely bliss. 

There never does that dreary north-wind blow 
Which leaves our English forests bleak and bare, 

Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered snow, 
Nor doth the red-toothed lightning ever dare 

To wake them in the silver-fretted night 

When we lie weeping for some sweet sad sin, some dead 
delight. 



PANTHEA. 177 

Alas ! they know the far Lethsean spring, 

The violet-hidden waters well they know, 
Where one whose feet with tired wandering 

Are faint and broken may take heart and go, 
And from those dark depths cool and crystalline 
Drink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless souls, and 
anodyne. 

But we oppress our natures, God or Fate 

Is our enemy, we starve and feed 
On vain repentance — O we are born too late ! 

What balm for us in bruised poppy seed 
Who crowd into one finite pulse of time 
The joy of infinite love and the fierce pain of infinite 
crime. 

O we are wearied of this sense of guilt. 

Wearied of pleasure's paramour despair. 
Wearied of every temple we have built. 

Wearied of every right, unanswered prayer. 
For man is weak ; God sleeps : and heaven is high : 
One fiery-coloured moment : one great love ; and lo ! 
we die. 



12 



1/8 PANTHEA. 

Ah ! but no ferry-man with labouring pole 

Nears his black shallop to the fiowerless strand, 

No little coin of bronze can bring the soul . 
Over Death's river to the sunless land, 

Victim and wine and vow are all in vain. 

The tomb is sealed ; the soldiers watch ; the dead rise 
not again. 

We are resolved into the supreme air, 

We are made one with what we touch and see, 

With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair, 
With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree 

Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range 

The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is 
change. 

With beat of systole and of diastole 

One grand great life throbs through earth's giant heart. 
And mighty waves of single Being roll 

From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part 
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill. 
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what, 
we kill. 



PANTHEA. 179 

From lower cells of waking life we pass 

To full perfection ; thus the world grows old : 

We who are godlike now were once a mass 
Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold, 

Unsentient or of joy or misery, 

And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind- 
swept sea. 

This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn 
Will make some meadow blaze with daflbdil, 

Ay ! and those argent breasts of thine will turn 
To water-lilies ; the brown fields men till 

Will be more fruitful for our love to-night, 

Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death's 
despite. 

The boy's first kiss, the hyacinth's first bell, 
The man's last passion, and the last red spear 

That from the lily leaps, the asphodel 

Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear 

Of too much beauty, and the timid shame 

Of the young bride-groom at his lover's eyes, — these 
with the same 



i8o 



PANTHEA. 



One sacrament are consecrate, the earth 

Not we alone hath passions hymeneal, 
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth 

At daybreak know a pleasure not less real 
Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood 
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is 
good. 

So when men bury us beneath the yew 
Thy crimson-stained mouth a rose will be, 

And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with dew, 
And when the white narcissus wantonly 

Kisses the wind its playmate, some faint joy 

Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and 
boy. 

And thus without life's conscious torturing pain 

In some sweet flower we will feel the sun. 
And from the linnet's throat will sing again. 

And as two gorgeous-mailed snakes will run 
Over our graves, or as two tigers creep 
Through the hot jungle where the yellow-eyed huge lions 
sleep 



PANTHEA. l8l 

And give them battle ! How my heart leaps up 

To think of that grand hving after death 
In beast and bird and flower, when this cup, 

Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath, 
And with the pale leaves of some autumn day 
The soul earth's earliest conqueror becomes earth's last 
great prey. 

O think of it ! We shall inform ourselves 
Into all sensuous life, the goat-foot Faun, 

The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed Elves 
That leave their dancing rings to spite the dawn 

Upon the meadows, shall not be more near 

Than you and I to nature's mysteries, for we shall hear 

The thrush's heart beat, and the daisies grow. 
And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun 

On sunless days in winter, we shall know 
By whom the silver gossamer is spun. 

Who paints the diapered fritillaries. 

On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle 
flies. 



1 82 PANTHEA. 

Ay ! had we never loved at all, who knows 

If yonder daffodil had lured the bee 
Into its gilded womb, or any rose 

Had hung with crimson lamps its little tree ! 
Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring, 
But for the lovers' lips that kiss, the poets' lips that sing 



n 



Is the light vanished from our golden sun, 

Or is this daedal-fashioned earth less fair. 
That we are nature's heritors, and one 

With every pulse of life that beats the air? 
Rather new suns across the sky shall pass, 
New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the 
grass. 

And we two lovers shall not sit afar. 

Critics of nature, but the joyous sea 
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star 

Shoot arrows at our pleasure ! We shall be 
Part of the mighty universal whole, 

And through all aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic 
Soul! 



PANTHEA. ,183 

We shall be notes in that great Symphony 

Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, 

And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be 
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years 

Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die, 

The Universe itself shall be our Immortahty ! 



i8s 



IMPRESSION. 

LE REVEILLON. 

The sky is laced with fitful red, 
The circling mists and shadows flee, 
The dawn is rising fi-om the sea, 
Like a white lady fi-om her bed. 

And jagged brazen arrows fall 
Athwart the feathers of the night, 
And a long wave of yellow light 
Breaks silently on tower and hall, 

And spreading wide across the wold 
Wakes into flight some fluttering bird. 
And all the chestnut tops are stirred, 
And all the branches streaked with gold. 



1 86 



AT VERONA. 

How steep the stairs within Kings' houses are 
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread, 
And O how salt and bitter is the bread 

Which falls from this Hound's table, — better far 

That I had died in the red ways of war, 
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head, 
Than to live thus, by all things comraded 

Which seek the essence of my soul to mar. 

" Curse God and die : what better hope than this ? 
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss 
Of his gold city, and eternal day " — 

Nay peace : behind my prison's bhnded bars 
I do possess what none can take away. 
My love, and all the glory of the stars. 



^ 



1 87 



APOLOGIA. 

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane, 
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey, 

And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain 

Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day ? 

Is it thy will — Love that I love so well — 

That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot 

Wherein, like evil pai'amours, must dwell 

The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not? 

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure, 
And sell ambition at the common mart. 

And let dull failure be my vestiture. 
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart. 



1 88 APOLOGIA. 

Perchance it may be better so — at least 
I have not made my heart a heart of stone, 

Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast, 
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown. 

Many a man hath done so ; sought to fence 

In straitened bonds the soul that should be free, 

Trodden the dusty road of common sense, 
While all the forest sang of liberty, 

Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight 
Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air, 

To where the steep untrodden mountain height 
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair. 

Or how the little flower he trod upon, 

The daisy, that Avhite-feathered shield of gold, 

Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun 
Content if once its leaves were aureoled. 

But surely it is something to have been 

The best beloved for a little while, 
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen 

His purple v/ings flit once across thy smile. 



APOLOGIA. 189 

Ay ! though the gorged asp of passion feed 
On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars, 

Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed 
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars ! 



IQO 



QUIA MULTUM AMAVI. 

Dear Heart I think the young impassioned priest 
When first he takes from out the hidden shrine 

His God imprisoned in the Eucharist, 

And eats the bread, arid drinks the dreadful wine, 

Feels not such awful wonder as I felt 

When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee, 

And all night long before thy feet I knelt 
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry. 

Ah ! had'st thou liked me less and loved me more, 
Through all those summer days of joy and rain, 

I had not now been sorrow's heritor, 
Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain. 



QUIA MULTUM AMAVI. I91 

Yet, though remorse, youth's white-faced seneschal 
Tread on my heels with all his retinue, 

I am most glad I loved thee — think of all 
The suns that go to make one speedwell blue ! 



192 



SILENTIUM AMORIS. 

As oftentimes the too resplendent sun 
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon 

Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won 
A single ballad from the nightingale, 
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail, 

And all my sweetest singing out of tune. 

And as at dawn across the level mead 

On wings impetuous some wind will come. 

And with its too harsh kisses break the reed 
Which was its only instrument of song. 
So my too stormy passions work me wrong, 

And for excess of Love my Love is dumb. 

But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show 
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung ; 

Else it were better we should part, and go, 
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody. 
And I to nurse the barren memory 

Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung. 



193 



HER VOICE. 

The wild bee reels from bough to bough 

With his furry coat and his gauzy wing. 
Now in a lily-cup, and now 
Setting a jacinth bell a- swing, 
In his wandering ; 
Sit closer love : it was here I trow 
I made that vow, 

Swore that two lives should be like one 
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea, 
As long as the sunflower sought the sun, — 
It shall be, I said, for eternity 
'Twixt you and me ! 
Dear friend, those times are over and done. 
Love's web is spun. 
13 



194 HER VOICE. 

Look upward where the poplar trees 
Sway and sway in the summer air, 
Here in the valley never a breeze 
Scatters the thistledown, but there 
Great winds blow fair 
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas, 
And the wave-lashed leas. 

Look upward where the white gull screams, 

What does it see that we do not see ? 
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams 
On some outward voyaging argosy, — 
Ah ! can it be 
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams ! 
How sad it seems. 

Sweet, there is nothing left to say 
But this, that love is never lost. 
Keen winter stabs the breasts of May 
Whose crimson roses burst his frost, 
Ships tempest-tossed 
Will find a harbour in some bay, 
And so we may. 



HER VOICE. 195 



And there is nothing left to do 

But to kiss once again, and part, 
Nay, there is nothing we should rue, 
I have my beauty, — you your Art, 
Nay, do not start, 
One world was not enough for two 
Like me and you. 



196 



MY VOICE. 

Within this restless, hurried, modern world 
We took our hearts' full pleasure — You and I, 

And now the white sails of our ship are furled, 
And spent the lading of our argosy. 

Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan, 
For very weeping is my gladness fled, 

Sorrow hath paled my lip's vermilion, 
And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed. 

But all this crowded life has been to thee 
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell 

Of viols, or the music of the sea 
That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell. 



197 



TEDIUM VIT^. 

To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear 

This paltry age's gaudy livery, 

To let each base hand filch my treasury. 

To mesh my soul within a woman's hair, 

And be mere Fortune's lackeyed groom, — I swear 

I love it not ! these things are less to me 

Than the thin foam that filets upon the sea. 

Less than the thistle-down of summer air 

Which hath no seed : better to stand alocC 

Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life 

Knowing me not, better the lowhest roof 

Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in. 

Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife 

Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin. 



HUMANITAD. 



It is full Winter now : the trees are bare, 
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold 

Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear 
The Autumn's gaudy livery whose gold 

Her jealous brother pilfers^, but is true 

To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it 
blew 

From Saturn's cave ; a few thin wisps of hay 
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain 

Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer's day 
From the low meadows up the narrow lane ; 

Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep 

Press close against* the hurdles, and the shivering house- 
dogs creep 



202 HUMANITAD. 

From the shut stable to the frozen stream 

And back again disconsolate, and miss 
The bawling shepherds and the noisy team ; 

And overhead in circling listlessness 
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack, 
Or crowd the dripping boughs ; and in the fen the ice- 
pools crack 

Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds 
And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck, 

And hoots to see the moon ; across the meads 
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck ; ■ 

And a stray seamew with its fretful cry 

Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky. 

Full winter : and the lusty goodman brings 

His load of faggots from the chilly byre. 
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings 

The sappy billets on the waning fire, 
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare 
His children at their play ; and yet, — the Spring is in the 
• air, 



HUMANITAD. 203 

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow, 

And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again 

With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow, 
For with the first warm kisses of the rain 

The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears, 

And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the 
rabbit peers 



From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie. 
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs 

Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly 
Across our path at evening, and the suns 

Stay longer with us ; ah ! how good to see 

Grass-girdled Spring in all her joy of laughing greenery 



Dance through the hedges till the early rose, 
(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar 1^ 

Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose 
The little quivering disk of golden fire 

Which the bees know so well, for with it come 

Pale boys-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom. 



204 HUMANITAD. 

Then up and down the field the sower goes, 
While close behind the laughing younker scares 

With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows, 
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears, 

And on the grass the creamy blossom falls 

In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals 

Steal from the bluebells' nodding carillons 
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine, 

That star of its own heaven, snapdragons 
With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine 

In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed 

And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath 
shed 

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply, 

And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes, 

Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy 

Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise, 

And violets getting overbold withdraw 

From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless 
haw. 



HUMANITAD. 205 

happy field ! and O thrice happy tree ! 

Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock 
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea, 

Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock 
Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon 
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring 
bees at noon. 

Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour. 
The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns 

Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture 

Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations 

With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind. 

And straggling traveller's joy each hedge with yellow stars 
will bind. 

Dear Bride of Nature and most bounteous Spring ! 

That can'st give increase to the sweet-breath'd kine. 
And to the kid its little horns, and bring 
fc.The soft and silky blossoms to the vine, 
Where is that old nepenthe which of yore 
Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore ! 



206 HUMANITAD. 

There was a time when any common bird 

Could make me sing in unison, a time 
When all the strings of boyish life were stirred 

To quick response or more melodious rhyme 
By every forest idyll ; — do I change ? 
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce 
range ? 

Nay, nay, thou art the same : 'tis I who seek 

To vex with sighs thy simple solitude, 
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek 

Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood ; 
Fool ! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare 
To taint such wine with the salt poison of his o\\ai 
despair ! 

Thou art the same : 'tis I whose wretched soul 

Takes discontent to be its paramour, 
And gives its kingdom to the rude control 

Of what should be its servitor, — for sure 
Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea 
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer " 'Tis not in 
me." 



HUMANITAD. 20/ 

To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect 

In natural honour, not to bend the knee 
In profitless prostrations whose effect 

Is by itself condemned, what alchemy 
Can teach me this ? what herb Medea brewed 
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued ? 



The minor chord which ends the harmony, 
And for its answering brother waits in vain, 

Sobbing for incompleted melody 

Dies a Swan's death ; but I the heir of pain 

A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes 

Wait for the light and music of those suns which never 
rise. 



The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom. 

The little dust stored in the narrow urn, 
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb, — 

Were not these better far than to return 
To my old fitful restless malady. 
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery? 



208 



HUMANITAD. 



Nay ! for perchance that poppy- crowned God 
Is like the watcher by a sick man's bed 

Who talks of sleep but gives it not ; his rod 
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said, 

Death is too rude, too obvious a key 

To solve one single secret in a life's philosophy. 



And Love ! that noble madness, whose august 

And inextinguishable might can slay 
The soul with honied drugs, — alas ! I must 

From such sweet ruin play the runaway, 
Although too constant memory never can 
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian 



Which for a little season made my youth 

So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence 
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth 

Seemed the thin voice of jealousy, — O Hence 
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis ! 
Go seek some other quarry ! for of thy too perilous bliss 



HUMANITAD. 209 

My lips have drunk enough, — no more, no more, — 

Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow- 
Back to the troubled waters of this shore 

Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now 
The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near, 
Hence ! Hence ! I pass unto a life more barren, more 
austere. 

More barren — ay, those arms will never lean 

Down through the trelhsed vines and draw my soul 

In sweet reluctance through the tangled green ; 
Some other head must wear that aureole, 

For I am Hers who loves not any man 

Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign Gorgo- 
nian. 

Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page. 
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair, 

With net and spear and hunting equipage 
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair. 

But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell 

Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel. 

14 



2IO HUMANITAD. 

Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy 
Who from Mount Ida saw the httle cloud 

Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy 
And knew the commg of the Queen, and bowed 

In wonder at her feet, not for the sake 

Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take. 

Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed ! 

And, if my lips be musicless, inspire 
At least my life : was not thy glory hymned 

By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre 
Like ^schylus at well-fought Marathon, 
And died to show that Milton's England still could bear 
a son ! 

And yet I cannot tread the Portico 

And live without desire, fear, and pain. 
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago 

The grave Athenian master taught to men. 
Self-poised, self-centred, arid self-comforted. 
To watch the world's vain phantasies go by with unbowed 
head. 



HUMANITAD. 2 1 1 

Alas ! that serene brow, those eloquent lips, 

Those eyes that mirrored all eternity, 
Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse 

Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne 
Is childless ; in the night which she had made 
For lofty secure flight Athena's owl itself hath strayed. 



Nor much with Science do I care to climb. 
Although by strange and subtle witchery 

She draw the moon from heaven : the Muse of Time 
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry 

To no less eager eyes ; often indeed 

In the great epic of Polymnia's scroll I love to read 



How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war 

Against a' little town, and panophed 
In gilded mail with jewelled scimetar. 

White-shielded, purple- crested, rode the Mede 
Between the waving poplars and the sea 
Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae 



212 HUMANITAD. 

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall, 

And on the nearer side a little brood 
Of careless- lions holding festival ! • 

And stood amazed at such hardihood, 
And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore, 
And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at mid- 
, night o'er 

Some unfrequented height, and coming down 

The autumn forests treacherously slew 
What Sparta held most dear and was the crown 

Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew^ 
How God had staked an evil net for him 
In the small bay of Salamis, — and yet, the page grows 
dim. 

Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel 
With such a goodly time too out of tune 

To love it much : for like the Dial's wheel 

That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon 

Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes 

Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision 
flies. 



HUMANITAD. 2 1 3 

O for one grand unselfish simple life 

To teach us what is Wisdom ! speak ye hills 

Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife 

Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills, 

Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly 

Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century ! 

Speak ye Rydahan laurels ! where is He 

Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul 

Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty 

Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal 

Where Love and Duty mingle ! Him at least 

The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom's 
feast, 

But we are Learning's changelings, know by rote 
The clarion watchword of each Grecian school 

And follow none, the flawless sword which smote 
The pagan Hydra is an effete tool 

Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now 

Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Rever- 
ence bow? 



214 , HUMANITAD. 

One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod ! 

Gone is that last dear son of Italy, 
Who being man died for the sake of God, 

And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully. 
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower, 
Thou marble lily of the lily town ! let not the lower 



Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or 

The Arno with its tawny troubled gold 
O'erleap its marge, no mightier conqueror 

Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old 
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty 
Walked like a Bride beside him, at which sight pale 
Mystery 



Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell 
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys, 

Fled shuddering for that immemorial knell 
With which oblivion buries dynasties 

Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast, 

As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed. 



HUMx\NITAD. 215 

He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome, 
He drave the base wolf from the lion's lair, 

And now lies dead by that empyreal dome 
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air 

By Brunelleschi — O Melpomene 

Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest thren- 
ody ! 

Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies 
That Joy's self may grow jealous, and the Nine 

Forget a-while their discreet emperies, 

Mourning for him who on Rome's lordhest shrine 

Lit for men's lives the hght of Marathon, 

And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun ! 

O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower. 
Let some young Florentine each eventide • 

Bring coronals of that enchanted flower 

Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide, 

And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies 

Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal 
eyes. 



2l6 HUMANITAD. 

Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings, 

Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim 
Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings 

Of the eternal chanting Cherubim 
Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away 
Into a moonless void, — and yet, though he is dust and 
clay, 

He is not dead, the immemorial Fates 

Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain. 
Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates ! 

Ye argent clarions sound a loftier strain ! 
For the vile thing he hated lurks within 
Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of 
sin. 

Still what avails it that she sought her cave 
That murderous mother of red harlotries ? 

At Munich on the marble architrave 

The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas 

Which wash ^gina fret in loneliness 

Not mirroring their beauty, so our lives grow colour- 
less 



HUMANITAD. 21/ 

For lack of our ideals, if one star 

Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust 

Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war 
Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust 

Which was Mazzini once ! rich Niobe 

For all her stony sorrows hath her sons, but Italy ! 

What Easter Day shall make her children rise, 
Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet 

Shall find their graveclothes folded? what clear eyes 
Shall see them bodily? O it were meet 

To roll the stone from off the sepulchre 

And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of 
Her 



Our Italy ! our mother visible ! 

Most blessed among nations and most sad, 
For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell 

That day at Asprcmonte and v/as glad 
That in an age when God was bought and sold 
One man could die for Liberty ! but we, burnt out and 
cold, 



2l8 HUMANITAD. 

See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves 

Bind the sweet feet of Mercy : Poverty 
Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives 

Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily, 
And no word said : — O we are wretched men 
Unworthy of our great inheritance ! where is the pen 

Of austere Milton ? where the mighty sword 
Which slew its master righteously ? the years 

Have lost their ancient leader, and no word 
Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears : 

While as a ruined mother in some spasm 

Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthu- 
siasm 

Genders unlawful children, Anarchy 

Freedom's own Judas, the vile prodigal 
Licence who steals the gold of Liberty 

And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real 
One Fratricide since Cain, Envy the asp 
That stings itself to anguish. Avarice whose palsied 
grasp 



HUMANITAD. 219 

Is in its extent stiffened, monied Greed 

For whose dull appetite men waste away 
Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed 

Of things which slay their sower, these each day 
Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet 
Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely 
street. 

What even Cromwell spared is desecrated 
By weed and worm, left to the stormy play 

Of wind and beating snow, or renovated 

By more destructful hands : Time's worst decay 

Will wreathe its ruins with some lovehness, 

But these new Vandals can but make a rainproof barren- 
ness. 

Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing 

Through Lincoln's lofty choir, till the air 
Seems from such marble harmonies to ring 

With sweeter song than common lips can dare 
To draw from actual reed ? ah ! where is now 
The cunning hand v^hich made the flowering hawthorn 
branches bow 



220 HUMANITAD. 

For Southwell's arch, and carved the House of 

Who loved the lilies of the field with all 
Our dearest English flowers ? the same sun 

Rises for us : the seasons natural 
Weave the same tapestry of green and grey : 
The unchanged hills are with us : but that Spirit hath 
passed away. 

And yet perchance it may be better so, 

For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen, 
Murder her brother is her bedfellow. 

And the Plague chambers with her : in obscene 
And bloody paths her treacherous feet are set ; 
Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate ! 

For gentle brotherhood, the harmony 

Of living in the healthful air, the swift 
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free 

And women chaste, these are the things which lift 
Our souls up more than even Agnolo's 
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o'er the scroll of human 
woes, 



HUMANITAD. 221 

Or Titian's little maiden on the stair 

White as her own sweet lily and as tall, 
Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair, — 

Ah ! somehow life is bigger after all 
Than any painted angel could we see 
; The God that is within us ! The old Greek serenity 

Which curbs the passion of that level line 

Of marble youths, who with untroubled eyes 
And chastened limbs ride round Athena's shrine 

And mirror her divine economies, 
And balanced symmetry of what in man 
' Would else wage ceaseless warfare, — this at least within 
I the span 



[' 



Between our mother's kisses and the grave 
Might so inform our hves, that we could win 

Such mighty empires that from her cave 

Temptation would grow hoarse, and palKd Sin 

Would walk ashamed of his adulteries. 

And Passion creep from out the House of Lust with 
startled eyes. 



222 HUMANITAD. 

To make the Body and the Spirit one 

With all right things, till no thing live in vain 

From morn to noon, but in sweet unison 
With every pulse of flesh and throb of brain 

The Soul in flawless essence high enthroned, 

Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned, 



Mark with serene impartiality 

The strife of things, and yet be comforted, ' 
Knowing that by the chain causality 

All separate existences are wed 
Into one supreme whole, whose utterance 
Is joy, or hoher praise ! ah ! surely this were governance 



Of Life in most august omnipresence. 

Through which the rational intellect would find 

In passion its expression, and mere sense, 
Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind, 

And being joined with in harmony 

More mystical than that which binds the stars planetary. 



HUMANITAD. 223 

Strike from their several tones one octave chord 
Whose cadence being measureless would fly 

Through all the circling spheres, then to its Lord 
Return refreshed with its new empery 

And more exultant power, — this indeed 

Could we but reach it were to find the last, the perfect 
creed. 

Ah ! it was easy when the world was young 

To keep one's life free and inviolate, 
From our sad lips another song is rung. 

By our own hands our heads are desecrate, 
Wanderers in drear exile, and dispossessed 
Of what should be our own, we can but feed on wild 
unrest. 

Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown, 
And of all men we are most wretched who 

Must live each other's lives and not our own 
For very pity's sake and then undo 

All that we live for — it was otherwise 

When soul and body seemed to blend in mystic sym- 
phonies. 



224 HUMANITAD. 

But we have left those gentle haunts to pass 

With weary feet to the new Calvary, 
Where we behold, as one who in a glass 

Sees his own face, self-slain Humanity, 
And in the dumb reproach of that sad gaze 
Learn what an awful phantom the red hand of man can 
raise. 

O smitten mouth ! O forehead crowned with thorn ! 

O chalice of all common miseries ! 
Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne 

An agony of endless centuries. 
And we were vain and ignorant nor knew 
That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real 
hearts we slew. 

Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds. 

The night that covers and the lights that fade. 

The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds, 
The lips betraying and the life betrayed ; _ 

The deep hath calm : the moon hath rest : but we 

Lords of the natural world are yet our own dread 
enemy. 



HUMANITAD. 225 

Is this the end of all that primal force 
Which, in its changes being still the same, 

From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course, 

Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame, 

Till the suns met in heaven and began 

Their cycles, and the morning star? sang, and the Word 
was Man ! 

Nay, nay, we are but crucified^ and though 
The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain, 

Loosen the nails — we shall come down I know, 
Staunch the red wounds — we shall be whole again, 

No need have we of hyssop-laden rod. 

That which is purely human, that is Godlike, that is 
God. 



15 



I 



227 



TAYKYniKPOS • EPOlS * 

Sweet I blame you not for mine the fault was, had I not- 
been made of common clay 

I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the 
fuller air, the larger day. 

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a 

better, clearer song, 
Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some 

Hydra-headed wrong. 



Had my hps been smitten into music by the kisses that 
I -but made them bleed. 

You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant 
and enamelled mead. 

P I had trod the road which Dante treading saw the suns of 
seven circles shine, 
Ay ! perchance had seen the heavens opening, as they 
opened to the Florentine. 



228 ' rATKXniKPOS • EP(2S • 

And the mighty nations would have crowned me, who am 

crownless now and without name, 
And some orient dawn had found me kneeling on the 

threshold of the House of Fame. 



I had sat within that marble circle where the oldest bard 
is as the young, ^| 

And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the lyre's 
strings are ever strung. 

Keats had Kfted up his hymenseal curls from out the 

poppy-seeded wine. 
With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, clasped 

the hand of noble love in mine. 

And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush the 

burnished bosom of the dove, 
Two young lovers lying in an orchard would have read 

the story of our love. 

Would have read the legend of my passion, known the 

bitter secret of my heart. 
Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as we two are 

fated now to part. 



rATKTniKPos • EPfis • 229 

For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the canker- 
worm of truth, 

And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals of 
the rose of youth. 

Yet I am not sorry that I loved you — ah ! what else had 

I a boy to do, — 
For the hungry teeth of time devoi^, and the silent-footed 

years pursue. 

Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and when once 

the storm of youth is past, 
Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death a silent pilot 

comes at last. 

And within the grave there is no pleasure, for the bhnd- 

worm battens on the root. 
And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree of Passion' 

bears no fruit. 

Ah ! what else had I to do but love you, God's own 

mother was less dear to me. 
And less dear the Cytheraean rising like an argent lily 

from the sea. 



230 



rATKTniKPOS • EP12S 



I have made my choice, have Hved my poems, and, 
though youth is gone in wasted days, 

I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better than the] 
poet's crown of bays. 



THE END. 



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